原来
yuán​lái HSK2

actually

原来 (原來) yuán​lái
actually adverb
as it turns out; so

原来这道题这么简单。

yuán​lái zhè dào tí zhè​me jiǎn​dān.

It turns out this problem is so simple.

original adjective
original; former

他还在原来的地方工作。

tā hái zài yuán​lái de dì​fang gōng​zuò.

He is still working in the same place as before.

originally adverb
at first; formerly

我原来以为他不来了。

wǒ yuán​lái yǐ​wéi tā bù lái le.

I originally thought he wasn't coming.

Frequency
Movie subtitles
88.8 per million appears in 32% of films
Written text
212.8 per million

Details
HSK 2.0
Level 4
HSK 3.0
Level 2

Cross-References

Has variant

Sources
Definitions
CC-CEDICT
Frequency data
SUBTLEX-CHBCC Corpus (BLCU)