A common confusion for beginners is the difference between these two structures: 1) 一V1就V2 ; 2)V1了就V2 Both structures somehow try to express how fast action V1 happens after V2 by inserting the adverb "就” in between. However, these two structures are slightly different regarding "how fast" the second action V2 happens. a. 我 一 吃飯 就 想睡覺。 b. 我 吃 了 飯 就 想睡覺。 In sentence A, the person starts to feel asleep right after he/she starts to eat . In other words, he/she hasn't finished eating. It's very likely that the person is not going to finish the meal at all. In sentence B, however, the person starts to feel asleep right after he/she finishes eating , for the "了” here indicates the completion of V1. This sentence sounds more natural because it's human nature. Beware that in both two structures, we can find ...
This is a common mistake for foreign learners. "我 剛剛 學這個生詞” The student was trying to say, "I just learned the vocab." Well, it seems correct to most foreign learners because if you look up in a dictionary you will find the translation for 剛剛 is "just". So why is the sentence incorrect? First of all, whenever you want to express the idea " just " in Chinese, always be careful, there are probably more than 4 different adverbs in Chinese for just , and, unfortunately you cannot use them freely. Let's then take a closer look into these two words: 剛剛 and 剛 . 1）剛剛： It's a time word , which means it's a noun , referring to the time not too long ago from the time you speak , could be a few seconds ago or up to a few hours ago, depends on the context. Grammatically speaking, you can use this word just like the way you use 昨天. For example: a. ...