"I only got off work at 11 last night."
Translation:我昨天晚上十一点才下班。
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801
I've been wondering about it for some time now and most of the time I've chosen the other place that Duolingo does not accept...
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I submitted the answer: "昨天晚上十一点才我下班." Is there any reason this would be incorrect? Duolingo did not accept this answer.
1147
才 (CAI2) should be used when an action occurs later than expected. For example, 我昨天晚上十二点才回家 (I didn't return home until 12:00 last night).
The opposite of 才 is 就 (JIU4) and should be used when the action occurs earlier than expected. For example, 我昨天晚上七点半就回家 (I already returned home by 7:30 last night).
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In this sentence it does the job of the English "only", which could also be "not until" as in "I didn't get off work until 11 last night." So you can't use it everywhere you can use "only" in English.
Here is a good video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebwgMkQ3jMo It says cai is best thought of as "only just" and has an implicit meaning of "...didn't do until..." For that reason, in this sentence, it is more accurate than using Zhi, which is more for a limitation (eg I only have three pens")
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This sentence sounds very unnatural to me as a native English speaker. It should be "I didn't get off work until 11 last night" or "I finally got off work at 11 last night." Is this phrasing a British thing? I've lived all over the US and I've never heard "only" used in this manner.