了 - Finished

Today's Chinese word of the day is 了 which means finished.

In Mandarin 了 is pronounced le.
This character is special in that it isn't a verb in itself but marks other verbs as being past tense.
Though Chinese doesn't have conjugation it is sometimes useful to say something happened rather than is happening. To do this you use the 了 character. Usually this is used at the end of a sentence such as 我吃了 wǒ chīle meaning I ate. Compare that to 我吃 wǒ chī which means I am eating.