Breakdown of xuéxiào yǐjīng tóngyì le nǐ de shēnqǐng.
Used after a verb. Marks that an action is completed.
Questions & Answers about xuéxiào yǐjīng tóngyì le nǐ de shēnqǐng.
已经 means “already” and adds the idea that the action is completed earlier than expected or earlier than some reference point.
Chinese does not mark tense (past / present / future) on the verb the way English does. Instead, it often shows:
- time with time words (昨天, 明天, 现在, etc.), and
- completion or aspect with words like 了, 过, 在, etc.
In this sentence, 已经 simply emphasizes that the approval is already done. Without 已经, the sentence is still grammatical; it just loses that “already” emphasis:
- 学校同意了你的申请。= The school agreed to / approved your application.
- 学校已经同意了你的申请。= The school has already approved your application. (a bit more emphatic / informative)
Here, 了 is an aspect marker showing that the action (同意 = to agree/approve) is completed.
学校同意你的申请。
→ grammatically ok, more like a general fact (the school agrees with your application / is in agreement with it).学校同意了你的申请。
→ emphasizes that the action happened / was carried out: the school approved your application.
Leaving 了 out is possible, but it can sound less clear that the decision is a finished event. With 已经 present, most natural speech still keeps 了:
- 学校已经同意你的申请。 (possible)
- 学校已经同意了你的申请。 (more common and clear in everyday speech)
So in this sentence, 了 highlights that the approval is already done, not just a general stance.
Yes, that sentence is also natural:
- 学校已经同意了你的申请。
- 学校已经同意你的申请了。
Both focus on a completed action, but there is a nuance:
Verb-了 (同意了)
- Marks the completion of the action itself.
- Slightly more neutral, just “they approved it (already).”
Sentence-final 了 (…申请了)
- Often emphasizes a change of situation: “It wasn’t approved before, but now it is.”
- Also often carries a feeling of informing or updating someone.
You wouldn’t normally use both:
- ❌ 学校已经同意了你的申请了 (sounds redundant/awkward in standard modern Mandarin).
的 is used here to show possession or association: “your application.”
- 你 = you
- 申请 = application / to apply (depending on context)
- 你的申请 = your application
Structure:
- [possessor] + 的 + [noun]
→ 你的书 (your book), 他的手机 (his phone), 我们的老师 (our teacher)
Without 的 here (你申请), it usually gets interpreted as a verb phrase “you apply” rather than the noun phrase “your application.” So 的 makes it clear that 申请 is being used as a noun: the specific application document / request that belongs to you.
In this sentence, 申请 functions as a noun meaning “application” (the thing that was approved):
- 学校已经同意了 你的申请。
→ The school has already agreed to / approved your application.
As a verb, 申请 means “to apply (for something)”:
- 我想申请这所大学。= I want to apply to this university.
- 他申请了奖学金。= He applied for a scholarship.
You can also make the noun more explicit:
- 你的申请书 (your application form/document)
But 你的申请 alone is completely natural.
是 is the copula “to be” and is not used in every sentence.
In Chinese, you don’t put 是 in front of every predicate the way English uses “to be.”
Structure here:
- Subject: 学校 (the school)
- Adverb: 已经 (already)
- Verb: 同意了 (agreed / approved)
- Object: 你的申请 (your application)
So the basic pattern is:
- Subject + (time/adverb) + Verb + Object
是 is used mainly:
- between two nouns / noun phrases:
- 他是老师。= He is a teacher.
- in some emphasis or contrast patterns (…是…的…, etc.)
But with a normal verb like 同意, you do not insert 是:
- ✔ 学校已经同意了你的申请。
- ❌ 学校是已经同意了你的申请。 (this sounds unnatural; you’d only see 是 here in some rare, contrastive or rhetorical structures, not as a normal sentence)
Yes, but each word adds its own nuance.
Remove 已经, keep 了
- 学校同意了你的申请。
- Still clearly a completed action: the school approved your application.
- Just loses the specific “already” focus.
Keep 已经, remove 了
- 学校已经同意你的申请。
- Grammatically possible and often used.
- Still implies completion because of 已经, but some speakers feel 已经 + 了 together is a bit more natural in everyday speech.
Remove both 已经 and 了
- 学校同意你的申请。
- Can sound like a general statement (“The school agrees with your application / is in agreement”) rather than reporting a completed, specific approval event.
So:
- 已经 = emphasizes “already (by now)”
- 了 = marks the action as completed
Together they make the idea of completed and already in effect very clear.
In Chinese, nouns referring to organizations or places often stand in for the people / authorities in them.
So 学校 can mean:
- the physical school building
- the school as an institution/administration (principal, admissions office, etc.)
In this kind of sentence, context makes it obvious that “the school” means “the school authorities / the administration”:
- 学校已经同意了你的申请。
→ “The school has already approved your application” = the decision-makers at the school.
This is similar to English uses like:
- “The school decided…”
- “The company approved…”
where school and company really mean “the people running them.”
Yes, you can replace 你 with 您 to make the sentence more polite and formal:
- 学校已经同意了您的申请。
→ Uses the polite “you” and “your.”
Differences:
- 你 = informal, neutral “you,” used with friends, peers, younger people.
- 您 = respectful “you,” used for elders, teachers, clients, or in formal situations.
Grammatically, both are correct. It’s just a matter of politeness and social distance.
Yes, that word order is possible in Chinese and is an example of a topic–comment structure:
- 你的申请，学校已经同意了。
(With a pause/comma in speech.)
Meaning:
- Topic: 你的申请 (“As for your application…”)
- Comment: 学校已经同意了 (“the school has already approved it.”)
Without a clear pause, 你的申请学校已经同意了 is still understandable, but adding a comma (or a pause in speech) makes it sound more natural:
- 你的申请，学校已经同意了。
Both:
- 学校已经同意了你的申请。
- 你的申请，学校已经同意了。
mean the same thing; the difference is just what you put in focus first (subject-first vs. topic-first).
Both can translate as “agree”, but they aren’t always interchangeable:
同意
- More formal and neutral.
- Often used for approving proposals, applications, opinions, plans.
- 学校同意了你的申请。= The school approved your application.
答应
- Often used for responding to requests or promising something.
- More like “agree to (do something)” / “promise.”
- e.g. 他答应帮我。= He agreed to help me / He promised to help me.
For an institutional decision about an application, 同意 is the most natural choice. Using 答应 there would sound more like the school “promised” you something, which is not the usual wording for formal approvals.