刚 / 刚刚 (just)

• 拼音: gāng
• 结构: Subject + 刚 / 刚刚 + Verb (+ Object) (+ Duration)
• 汉字拆解: 刚 = 冈 (ridge) + 刂 (knife)

含义

The adverb 刚 or 刚刚 means 'just' and indicates that an action happened very recently. It emphasizes the short amount of time that has passed since the action occurred.

刚 and 刚刚 are largely interchangeable, with 刚刚 being slightly more emphatic. Unlike 刚才 which points to a specific moment in the past, 刚 emphasizes the recency and freshness of the action — it just happened. A distinctive feature of 刚 is that it can be followed by a duration to specify exactly how long ago something happened, as in 刚来三天 (just arrived three days ago). 刚 is placed directly before the verb. Because 刚 already implies the action is recent and completed, it does not typically combine with 了 at the end of the sentence. 刚 is extremely common in spoken Chinese and appears in many set phrases.

例句

1. 我刚到家，还没换衣服。
2. 他刚刚吃完午饭。
3. 她刚来中国两个星期。

用法指南

语境: spoken, everyday

语气: conversational

正确说法

• 我刚洗完澡，头发还是湿的。
• 他们刚搬到这个小区，对周围还不太熟悉。
• 这家店刚开业不到一个月。

错误说法

• 我刚吃完饭了。(刚 already implies recency — adding 了 at the end is redundant and unnatural) → 我刚吃完饭。
• 她刚才来中国两个月。(刚才 is a time word for a specific past moment and cannot be followed by a duration — use 刚 instead) → 她刚来中国两个月。
• 我刚明天去北京。(刚 refers to the recent past — it cannot be used with future time words) → 我明天去北京。

起源与历史

刚 originally referred to something hard and strong, as in steel (钢). The temporal sense of 'just now' or 'barely' evolved from the idea of something being at its initial, raw state — freshly occurred.

文化背景

世代: All ages

社会背景: Universal