It turns out / originally with 原来

Structure 原来 + (revelation or previous state)

原来 (yuánlái) has two senses. As a realization, "it turns out…" (you suddenly get it): 原来是你啊 = "oh, it’s you!". As time, "originally, at first" (it used to be so): 我原来不知道这件事 = "I didn’t know about this before". Context tells them apart.

Examples

原yuán来lái是shì你nǐ啊a！
Oh, it’s you!
我wǒ原yuán来lái不bù知zhī道dào这zhè件jiàn事shì。
I didn’t know about this before.
原yuán来lái他tā早zǎo就jiù走zǒu了le。
It turns out he’d left long ago.

Levels are indicative: they follow the standard Chinese Grammar Wiki (AllSet Learning) progression, not an official HSK 3.0 mapping. We never assign levels by eye.

This point and the other 370, with audio on every example, inside Wanyu.