How to use 刚才
刚才 + Verb
刚才 refers to a recent period before the current moment or conversational reference point. It functions as a time expression, so it can appear before the subject or after it. The following predicate describes what happened, was happening, or was true in that recent period, rather than receiving a special past verb form.
It often corresponds to English “just now” or “a moment ago.” The interval is contextual, not a fixed number of minutes. 刚 instead presents an event as recent relative to an expectation and has a more restricted adverb position. Do not substitute the words solely because both can translate as “just”; consider whether you are naming a recent time or evaluating an event's recency.
Examples with pinyin and English
你刚才说什么了？
What did you just say?
刚才谁来了？
Who came just now?
刚才你去哪儿了？
Where did you go just now?
刚才我去洗手间了。
I just went to the restroom.
What to remember
- Treat 刚才 as a time expression.
- It can precede or follow the subject.
- The recent interval is context dependent.
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Source and editorial notes
Explanation rewritten for Laowai. Examples are adapted from the Laowai English grammar curriculum, with editorial corrections where needed. The original curriculum credits AllSet Learning’s Chinese Grammar Wiki as used with permission. Read the retained source credits.
Difficulty labels describe the level of the explanation; they are not official HSK placement. Send a correction with this page’s URL.