Hello everyone, I’m Grace.
Today we are going to talk about the Chinese adverb “就”,
which confuses lots of people.
This word is quite complicated, so today we will tackle it together.
Let’s go!
This word can be used in different contexts.
In total, I will tell you four ways to use this word,
today I will show you two ways first.
Because I want to explain each one more clearly
and I don’t want the video to be too long,
that is why I made two episodes.
So remember to hit the little bell so you won’t miss the next episode.
OK, let’s get into it!
The first one is “Using 就 to express a thing or an action happening earlier or sooner than expected.
So let’s take a look at this picture:
Here is the time you or others expect the thing or action will happen,
however, the thing or action actually happens at this point,
it happened earlier or sooner than expected.
So people use 就 to express the thing or action happening earlier or more quickly than expected.
So, let’s see how to use this:
First, you can add a time word before 就
For example,
Normally, people here wake up at around 8 or 9,
so the expected wake-up time would be 8 or 9,
but this person woke up at 5, it’s earlier than expected.
So this person adds “就” to show the earliness.
Another example could be
It’s the same,
normally your mother would not leave you when you are young, right?
So this “就” shows that the thing happened earlier than expected.
Another thing is that 就 in this usage is often combined with “早” this time word.
早 means “early, beforehand, long ago”,
it’s easy to understand why this time word is often combined with 就,
because they can be used together to express things actually happening earlier than you thought.
Let’s look at an example:
Here the father was drunk,
and he thought that they still don’t have a house yet,
so the daughter used “早就”
to express that they got a house sooner than her father expected.
Next, you can use 就 to connect two events or actions.
就 is used in this structure to indicate that
the second event or action happens right after the first event or action.
And this also has something to do with the thing happening earlier or sooner than expected.
Let’s see some examples first:
So let’s think about why we use 就 in this sentence:
Normally, you won’t fall in love with someone when you first meet the person, right?
So here 就 indicates that in the second event, the actor fell in love with the actress.
This happened right after the first event, when the actor met the actress,
so the second event happened sooner than we expected.
Another example:
The actress said: after I finish editing this part, I will go.
So here, the first action is editing this part 剪完這段,
and the second action is to go 去.
Between these two actions, adding 就 means
the second action will happen "right after" the first action.
So the actress will go to the activity right after she finishes editing the part.
And here you might have noticed before 就 you can add a subject.
To wrap up this part, let’s look at the picture:
When you use 就 to connect two events or actions,
it shows that the second one happens right after the first one. it’s sooner than expected.
The third way of using 就 in this usage is
就 plus 要
Here 要 this auxiliary verb means “to be going to”,
it’s a way to express the future tense in Chinese,
if you want to learn more about this, you can take a look at this video.
OK, so combining 就 with 要 can be used to express that
a thing or action is going to happen in the near future.
Let’s look at an original sentence without 就
If your mom tells you:
it means “the guest is coming”.
But if your mom says:
Adding this 就 can emphasize the thing is gonna happen very soon.
This sentence means that the guest is coming soon and they have almost arrived.
Let’s look at another example:
So here 就 is also added before 要 to show that
the thing is going to happen in the very near future.
Btw sometimes 就要 can have another meaning.
For example,
我就要吃這個 can mean: I "just want" to eat this. I don’t want anything else.
This is another usage of 就, I’ll talk about it in the next episode.
OK, let’s move on to the second usage.
That is 就 can be used as a conjunction word to show that
"if" something happens or because of a certain reason, "then" an action or result will happen next.
The meaning of 就 here is close to “then”.
Let’s take a look at an example:
This means “if you like it, then you take it”
Here 就 connects the condition with the next action.
The condition is 你喜歡 you like it.
The next action is 拿去 (you) take it.
So here, 就 is like “then”.
OK, let’s look at another example,
就 here is used as a conjunction word, to show that
if this thing happens, “then” you directly smash his head.
Also, one important thing is that in this usage, certain words often come along with 就
For instance: 如果(if)、要是(if)、只要(as long as)、既然(since, now that)
In the example from the movie, you can see 就 is used along with 要是（if）
You can memorize them as sentence structures:
OK, today we’ve learned two ways of using 就.
let’s have a quick recap.
The first usage is that
就 can be used to express a thing or action happening earlier or sooner than expected.
You can add a time word before 就,
or use 就 to connect two events or actions to show that the second event or action happens right after the first one.
Also, you can use 就要 to express that a thing or action will happen very soon.
The second usage is that you can use 就 as a conjunction word,
to connect a condition or reason with the next action or result.
The meaning of 就 here is like “then”
Next week there will be another episode about 就 coming out,
after watching these two videos, you will get a good sense of how to use 就.
So remember to hit the little bell.
You will get a notice when I upload the next episode.
OK, I’ll see you next time, bye!