How to use 坏了
Adjective / suitable verb + 坏了
坏了 can intensify a state so that it feels overwhelming or extreme. It often appears with tiredness, hunger, anger, or worry, but the emotional result can also be favorable, depending on the preceding word. The phrase is usually expressive and conversational. It conveys the speaker's strong assessment rather than necessarily claiming that someone or something has suffered literal physical damage.
Put 坏了 directly after a suitable predicate and learn the combinations in context. The same characters can describe actual damage after other verbs, so distinguish the intensifying reading from a concrete result. The source of the state can be stated earlier, with the intensified predicate describing how the person ends up feeling.
Examples with pinyin and English
大家都累坏了。
Everyone was dead-tired.
我早饭和中饭都没吃， 饿坏了。
I didn't eat anything for breakfast or lunch. I'm starved to death.
发现爸爸又去赌钱了，妈妈气坏了。
Discovering the father went gambling again, the mother was incensed.
孩子不见了，妈妈急坏了。
The child is missing. The mother is worried sick.
What to remember
- Use 坏了 with naturally compatible predicates.
- Distinguish extreme feeling from actual damage.
- Expect an expressive conversational tone.
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Source and editorial notes
Explanation rewritten for Laowai. Examples are adapted from the Laowai English grammar curriculum, with editorial corrections where needed. The original curriculum credits AllSet Learning’s Chinese Grammar Wiki as used with permission. Read the retained source credits.
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