Verbing briefly with "yixia"

一下 after a verb means "for a moment" — the politest way to ask for something small.

Verb + 一下

How it works

你看一下 (have a quick look), 等一下 (hang on a second), 帮我一下 (give me a hand).

It works exactly like verb reduplication and the two are interchangeable in most requests.

With an object, 一下 comes between verb and object: 看一下这个.