tíngshuǐ zhídào xiàwǔ cái jiéshù.

停水 literally means stop water, but in real usage it means the water supply is cut off or there is a water outage.

So in this sentence, 停水 refers to the period when the water was not available.

Chinese often leaves out subjects when they are obvious from context.

Here, 停水 itself is treated as the topic or event being talked about. So the sentence is really saying something like:

As for the water outage, it didn’t end until the afternoon.

You do not need an explicit subject the way English often does.

直到 means until.

It introduces the endpoint in time:

• 直到下午 = until the afternoon

In this sentence, it sets up the time when the situation finally changed.

A very useful pattern is:

直到 + time + 才 + verb

which means:

not until + time + did something happen

才 is very important here. It adds the idea of only then or not until then.

So:

• 直到下午结束 would just sound like it ended by/until the afternoon
• 直到下午才结束 means it didn’t end until the afternoon

That 才 gives the sentence its delayed or late-result feeling.

Yes — that is the most natural English translation.

The pattern:

直到……才……

is often best translated as:

didn’t ... until ...

So:

停水直到下午才结束。
= The water outage didn’t end until the afternoon.

结束 means to end or to be over.

Here it refers to the event 停水. In other words:

• the water outage ended
• the period of no water was over

So 结束 is not about the afternoon ending — it is about the outage ending.

It starts out as a verb-object phrase:

• 停 = stop
• 水 = water

But in this sentence, 停水 functions like a noun-like event, meaning the water outage.

This is very common in Chinese. A verb phrase can often act as the thing being discussed.

Compare English:

• The meeting ended late
• Meeting is originally an action, but it can also act like a thing

Chinese does this very naturally.

It would be less natural if you want the same meaning.

直到……才…… is a standard pattern. The 才 makes it clear that the ending happened only at that time, not earlier.

Without 才, the sentence may sound incomplete, less idiomatic, or weaker in meaning.

So for this sentence, keeping 才 is the best choice.

Because Chinese often leaves out time words that are understood from context.

下午 can mean:

• this afternoon
• in the afternoon
• the afternoon

The exact meaning depends on the situation. If everyone already knows which day is being discussed, 下午 is enough.

The structure is:

停水 + 直到 + 下午 + 才 + 结束

You can think of it as:

[event] + [until time] + [only then] + [end]

In more natural English order, that becomes:

The water outage didn’t end until the afternoon.

So Chinese keeps the time phrase before the final verb 结束, while English usually puts it into a didn’t ... until ... structure.

Yes, that is a very natural English translation.

Literally, the Chinese says:

The water outage didn’t end until the afternoon.

But in natural English, people often focus on the result:

The water wasn’t restored until the afternoon.

So:

• more literal: The water outage didn’t end until the afternoon
• more natural in everyday English: The water wasn’t restored until the afternoon

Both are good, depending on the context.