Jiu and le

BangWo
 July 06, 2013, 04:53 PM posted in General Discussion

These examples are from the expansion.  Why do we use "了" in the second example, and not the first?

1 你不吃，就不准出去玩。

2 如果周末下雨， 我们就不去了。

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verazhang100
 July 08, 2013, 03:21 AM

Here the 了 means 'situation is changing'. The first one: If you don't eat, you are not allowed to go out. Nothing is changing in this sentence. But the second one: if it's raining this weekend, we are not going. It implys the orignal plan is to go this weekend. But if it rains, then the plan will be changed.

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BangWo

Oh, thanx. That makes sense.