trevelyan on December 18, 2011
We haven't done one that covers them all, mostly because a podcast that consists of a list of complicated usages with subtle distinctions rapidly descends into farce. That said, here are the major uses:(1) As an adverb, indicating that the verb which follows happened earlier than someone expected, as in 她们九点钟就到了。This is the opposite of 才, which imho is much more useful.(2) As an adverb, adding a sense of emphasis and often exclusivity. Particularly with 就在 and 就是 but other verbs as well (as with the McDonalds slogan 我就喜欢). You probably want to steer away from pairing this with random verbs but it's really common especially with verbs about wanting or liking something (我就想去, 他就要那个, etc.)(3) Used somewhat inconsistently to stress numbers (两个人就够了) and dates (就今天吧) with a general meaning of "only". We only found out about it today, or only two people are enough, etc.(4) As a conjunction meaning "then" or "it's only that". This is typically the way 就 gets taught in classrooms because it leads naturally to constructions like 一 X 就 Y (as soon as X then Y), but it's frequently omitted in colloquial speech since these sort of relationships are often just implied by context. So when people use it they're generally adding it for extra emphasis.(5) A more formal usage similar to 对, used to introduce the subject of something under discussion. (他就你们的问题提到了自己的意见). He - with regards to your question - gave his own opinion.If it helps, our bible for this stuff is the "The New Chinese-English Dictionary of Function Words" published by Sinolingua. They lay out a lot of distinctions between usages which are sometimes inconsistent and often boil to 语感, but still have the clearest categorization of this sort of thing we've run into. I know Brendan has recommended this in the past too.
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