“就” and “才” as adverbs of time

时间副词“就” 与 “才 ”

Youxuan Wang

2011-01-26

就 拼音：jiù 部首：尢 笔顺：412512341354

才 拼音：cái 部首：扌 笔顺：123

The adverbs “就” and “才” figure in the text of lesson 33. Their uses are discussed in a note to this text on page 32. They are also discussed in Y/R, 14.3, and Y/R refers to them as referential adverbs.

To help students of Chinese as a second language, I would like to make a logical analysis of how these two adverbs are used – logical in the sense in which sentences are treated as meaningful statements of facts/events rather than mere syntactical forms empty of any meaning.

1. Logical analysis:

As adverbs, they both appear immediately before the verb of the second of two co-ordinate statements, e.g.:

(a)       Sentence 1 (Subject + Verb), sentence 2 (Subject + 就 + Verb).

田芳做完作业，就给朋友写信。

(b)      Sentence 1 (Subject + Verb), sentence 2 (Subject + 才 + Verb).

田芳做完作业，才给朋友写信。

1.a. Common characteristics of the sentence patterns (a) and (b):

     In both (a) and (b), objectively,

• Each of the two sentences describes a separate event. This means that, in the above examples, “田芳做作业” describes an event, and “田芳给朋友写信” recounts another event.
• The second sentence describes an event that immediately follows the event described by the first sentence. Namely, “田芳给朋友写信” is an event that follows immediately the event referred to by the statement “田芳做作业”.

Subjectively, 

• The issue is about how soon the second event has taken place form the point of view of the speaker’s expectation.
• The first event is used by the speaker as a time marker.

2.   The difference between (a) and (b):

·         If the time in which the first event takes place is judged by the speaker to be early for the second event to take place, “就”is used as adverb for the verb of the second statement.

·         Conversely, if the time of the first event is judged to be rather too late for the second event to take place, “才”is used.

Examples:

田芳做完作业，就/ 才 给朋友写信。

田芳做完作业，就给朋友写信。Tiánfāng zuòwán zuòyè, jìu gěi péngyou xǐexìn.
First event	Tian Fang finished her homework.
Second event	Tian Fang wrote letters to a friend.
Implication	Tian Fang acted quickly and wasted no to write the letter.

田芳做完作业，才给朋友写信。Tiánfāng zuòwán zuòyè, cái gěi péngyou xǐexìn.
First event	Tian Fang finished her homework.
Second event	Tian Fang wrote letters to a friend.
Implication	Tian Fang should have written the letter before she finished her homework.

3 More examples

3.a. More examples of how “就” is used:

他三岁就开始学拉小提琴了 tā sānsuì jìu kāishǐ xué lā xiǎotíqín le。 He was only three when started to learn to play violin.
First event	He was three years old.
Second event	He started to play the violin,.
Implication	He started to play the violin at an early age.

他一大早就起床了 tā yídàzǎo jiù qǐchuáng le。 It was very early in the morning when he got up.
First event	It was the early hours in the morning.
Second event	He got up.
Implication	He got up early.

她十岁时就能说五种语言了tā shísuì jìunéng shuō wúzhǒng yǔyán le。 She was only ten when she could speak five languages.
First event	She was ten years old.
Second event	She spoke five languages.
Implication	She was very young when she mastered five languages.

我们吃了晚饭就去电影院去吧 wǒmen chīle wǎnfàn jìu qù diànyǐngyuàn ba。 Let’s go to the cinema as soon as we have had our supper.
First event	We will have supper.
Second event	We will go to the cinema.
Implication	We will act quickly and go to the cinema.

她一回家就开始做饭 tā yī huíjiā jìu kāishǐ zuòfàn。 She started cooking once she got home.
First event	She returned home.
Second event	She started cooking.
Implication	She gave priority to the job of preparing meels.

她一下课就马上到图书馆去 tā yīxiàkè jìu mǎshang dào túshūguǎn qù。 She went straight to the library as soon as her class finished.
First event	She finished her class.
Second event	She went to the library.
Implication	She rushed to the library.

3.b. More examples of how “才” is used:

他五岁才开始会说话 tā wǔsuì jìu kāishǐ huì shuōhuā。 It was not until he was five when he was able to speak.
First event	He was five years old.
Second event	He started to learn to speak.
Implication	He was a slow learner.

他早晨十点才开始起床 tā zǎochén shídiǎn cái kāishǐ qǐchuáng。 It was not until ten o’clock in the morning that he got up from bed.
First event	It was ten o’clock.
Second event	He got up from his bed.
Implication	He was lazy.

这位大诗人十五岁才上小学 zhèwèi dàshīrén shíwǔsuì cái shàng xiǎoxué。 It was not until he reached the age of 15 that this great poet started going to the primary school.
First event	He was fifteen years old.
Second event	He started to go to primary school.
Implication	He wasn’t a genius when he was younger.

她洗了衣服，干完了许多家务，才开始坐下来休息 tā xǐle yīfú, gànwánle xǔduō jiāwù, cái kāishǐ zuòxiàlái xíuxi。 It was not until she finished washing and doing loads of other kinds of housework that she sat down to take a rest.
First event	She washed her clothes.
Second event	She did a lot of housework.
Third event	She sat down to take a rest.
Implication	She deserves to take break much earlier.

他到了利兹才知道那儿有一所很好的大学。 tā dàole Lìzī cái zhīdào nà’r yǒu yīsuǒ hénhǎode dàxué。 Not until he visited Leeds did he know that there was a very good university there.
First event	He arrived in Leeds.
Second event	He learned that the University of Leeds was very good.
Implication	He should have learned that long before he physically arrived in Leeds.

4. Exercises

(i) Translate the following sentences into English:

(1)   今晚的电影八点才开始，我们不必出发太早。

(2)   他五年前就开始动笔写这部小说了，听说他要到明年才能写完。

(3)   太了不起了！这男孩不到18岁就开始读博士了。我今年五十岁，才开始上大学呢！

(4)   他书架上有两百部小说,他只用半年的时间就全部读完了。我在两年里才读三部小说。

(5)   他很少在他公司的办公室里。我到他公司跑了好几趟，才见到他。

(ii) Translate the following sentences into Chinese:

(1)   The class starts as late as 8:30 a.m.. How come that you arrived as early as 6:30 a.m.?

(2)   We ordered the books in March, but the books didn’t arrive as late as in October.

(3)   How amazing! The child starts to talk before he is hardly one year old. My son didn’t start to talk until after he was one and half years old.

(4)   There are many new words in this chapter, but it took John only half hour to memorise all of them.

(5)   I didn’t manage to get my tones right (把我的声调搞准 bǎ wǒde shēngdiào gǎo zhǔn) until I have tried  many times.

(iii) Is “就” correctly used in the following sentences?

(iv) Is “才” correctly used in the following sentences?

(1) 现在北京是上午八点多，我们那儿才夜里两点多。