来
lái HSK1

come

来 (來) lái
come verb
to arrive or move toward the speaker

他今天下午会来我办公室。

tā jīn​tiān xià​wǔ huì lái wǒ bàn​gōng​shì.

He will come to my office this afternoon.

in order to verb
connector between two verbs or phrases used to indicate purpose

大家通过讨论来解决问题。

dà​jiā tōng​guò tǎo​lùn lái jiě​jué wèn​tí.

Everyone solves the problem through discussion.

substitute verb
used as a generic substitute for a more specific verb

你累了，让我来吧。

nǐ lèi le, ràng wǒ lái ba.

You're tired; let me do it.

hither verb
directional complement indicating motion toward the speaker

请你把那本书拿来。

qǐng nǐ bǎ nà běn shū ná lái.

Please bring me that book.

since directional
ever since a specific point in time or for a duration of time looking backward

这三天来，他水米未进，身体非常虚弱。

zhè sān tiān lái, tā shuǐ mǐ wèi jìn, shēn​tǐ fēi​cháng xū​ruò.

Over the past three days, he hasn't eaten or drunk anything and is very weak.

begin verb
sentence-final particle used after a verb (often with 了 le) to indicate the start or initiation of an action or that people have begun to do something

他们坐在公园的长椅上，谈起了话来。

tā​men zuò zài gōng​yuán de cháng​yǐ shàng, tán​qǐ le huà lái.

They sat on a park bench and began talking.

approximately numeral
used after a round number to indicate an estimate

操场上有二十来个学生在踢球。

cāo​chǎng shàng yǒu èr​shí​lái gè xué​sheng zài tī​qiú.

There are about twenty students playing soccer on the playground.

possibility verb
used after the particles 'de' or 'bu' to indicate potentiality, capability, or agreeableness

我跟那个人谈不来。

wǒ gēn nà gè rén tán bù lái.

I don't get along with that person.

future verb
prefix indicating the coming or next time period

大家都在共同努力，期待着来年能有一个好的收成。

dà​jiā dōu zài gòng​tóng nǔ​lì, qī​dài zhe lái nián néng yǒu yī gè hǎo de shōu​chéng.

Everyone is working hard together, looking forward to a good harvest next year.

Frequency
Character
Written text
15th most common 5578.5 per million
Movie subtitles
16th most common 8067.7 per million appears in 100% of films
Word
Movie subtitles
5519.3 per million appears in 100% of films
Written text
2016.7 per million

Details
HSK 2.0
Level 1
HSK 3.0
Level 1
Traditional
來
Strokes
7
Unicode
U+6765

Sources
Definitions
CC-CEDICT
Frequency data
MTSU Chinese text computingSUBTLEX-CHBCC Corpus (BLCU)