Learn Hardcore Chinese: tā měitiān xiàbān yǐhòu dōu huàhuà yíhuìr, xīwàng yǒu yìtiān biéren huì jiào tā huàjiā. - Every day after work she draws for a while and hopes that one day people will call her a painter.

With time words like 每天 (every day), 常常 (often), etc., adding 都 is very common and makes the habitual nature of the action stronger and more natural-sounding.

With 都: feels like “every day, each and every time she does this.”
Without 都: still correct, just slightly less emphatic/natural in speech.

Why is the word order “每天下班以后” and not something like “下班每天以后” or “以后下班”?

Chinese time expressions are ordered from bigger to smaller and then placed before the verb:

每天 – “every day” (larger time unit)
下班以后 – “after getting off work” (time within that day)

So you get:

她　每天　下班以后　都画画一会儿。
[subject] [bigger time] [more specific time] [verb phrase]

“下班每天以后” and “以后下班” are ungrammatical or unnatural in this meaning.
You can change the structure, but you keep the logic:

每天下班以后，她都画画一会儿。 (fronting the time phrase)
她下班以后每天都画画一会儿。 (less common, slightly odd emphasis, but readable)

Why is it 画画 (huàhuà) instead of just 画 (huà)?

画画 is a reduplicated verb and is very common in spoken Chinese. Compared with a single 画, it usually suggests:

doing the activity in a casual, relaxed, or short-term way
focusing on the general activity (“do some drawing / do some painting”) rather than a specific picture.

Here:

画画一会儿 ≈ “draw/paint for a bit / do some drawing.”

If you’re talking about drawing something specific, you typically just use 画:

她在画一幅画。 – She is drawing a picture.
他画了一只猫。 – He drew a cat.

So:

画画 – “to do drawing / to draw (as an activity)”
画 + object – “to draw (a specific thing).”

What does 一会儿 (yíhuìr) add to the sentence?

一会儿 literally means “a short while / a little while.”
In this sentence:

画画一会儿 = “draw for a little while / for a bit.”

It gives information about duration and also suggests the action is not very long or heavy — it’s a short, regular practice time.

Variants you might see:

一会儿 (with 儿) – common in the North / standard speaking
一会 (without 儿) – also used in writing or in regions without 儿化
Sometimes 一会儿时间 – “a short period of time” (more explicit)

Why is 一 (yī) pronounced with second tone in 一会儿 (yíhuìr) instead of first tone?

This is due to tone sandhi for 一:

Before a fourth-tone syllable, 一 changes from first tone (yī) to second tone (yí).

In 一会儿:

会 huì is fourth tone → so 一 becomes yí.
Hence 一会儿 = yíhuìr.

Other examples:

一个 (gè) → yí gè
一半 (bàn) → yí bàn

So the spelling yíhuìr in pinyin is showing this tone change.

Why is there no 了 (le) after 画画? Isn’t 了 often used with completed actions?

You don’t use 了 here because the sentence describes a habitual, repeated action, not a single completed event.

她每天下班以后都画画一会儿。
= Every day she does this as a routine.

了 is commonly used for specific completed events or changes of state. If you talked about one particular day, you could use 了:

她昨天下班以后画画了一会儿。
She drew for a while after work yesterday. (one specific completed action)

But with 每天 + 都 describing a habit, you normally don’t add 了 after the verb.

Why can you start the second clause with 希望 (xīwàng) without repeating 她? Who is doing the hoping?

In Chinese, if two clauses share the same subject, the subject is often dropped in the second clause to avoid repetition.

Context:

First clause: 她每天下班以后都画画一会儿，
Second clause: 希望有一天别人会叫她画家。

The subject 她 from the first clause continues into the second clause, so the full version would be:

她每天下班以后都画画一会儿，她希望有一天别人会叫她画家。

It’s clear that 她 is the one who 希望 (hopes), so native speakers naturally omit the second 她.

What is the nuance of 希望 (xīwàng) here, and how is it different from 想 (xiǎng) or 要 (yào)?

希望 expresses a hope or wish, often about the future, that may or may not come true:

希望有一天别人会叫她画家。
She hopes that one day others will call her an artist.

Comparisons:

想 – “want to / would like to / feel like”; focuses more on desire or intention
- 她想有一天别人叫她画家。 – understandable, but less natural; sounds more like “she wants one day for others to call her an artist.”
要 – often “want to / be going to / must”; stronger intention or plan
- 她要当画家。 – She wants to / is going to be an artist. (her goal or plan)

In this sentence, we’re talking about a hope for the future, not a concrete plan, so 希望 is the most natural choice.

What does 有一天 (yǒu yìtiān) mean here, and why do we need 有?

有一天 literally is “(there) is one day,” but idiomatically it means:

“one day (in the future)” / “someday.”

Here:

希望有一天别人会叫她画家。
= She hopes that one day (in the future), others will call her an artist.

If you said 一天别人会叫她画家 (without 有), it would sound incomplete or strange.
有一天 is a fixed, natural way to introduce a non-specific future day.

Contrast:

有一天，他突然不见了。 – One day, he suddenly disappeared. (past event; storytelling)
Context decides whether it’s past storytelling or future “someday” hope.

Why is 会 (huì) used before 叫 (jiào)? What does 别人会叫她画家 express?

In 别人会叫她画家, 会 indicates likelihood / possibility in the future:

会 here ≈ “will” (in the sense of “will probably / is expected to”).

So:

别人会叫她画家。 – People will (one day) call her an artist.

If you remove 会:

别人叫她画家。 – People call her an artist.
This sounds like it’s already happening now (a present fact), which doesn’t fit the context of 希望有一天 (she hopes this will happen in the future).

So 会 matches the “one day, in the future” meaning.

How does 叫 (jiào) work in 叫她画家? Why isn’t there a 是?

In this pattern, 叫 means “to call (someone) [something]”:

叫 + person + [role/title/name]

Examples:

大家都叫他小李。 – Everyone calls him Little Li.
老师叫我小王。 – The teacher calls me Xiao Wang.
别人会叫她画家。 – Others will call her an artist.

There is no 是 in this structure. You don’t say:

✗ 叫她是画家 – incorrect.

If you want to use 是, you need a different structure:

别人会说她是画家。 – Others will say that she is an artist.

But with 叫, the natural pattern is: 叫 + 人 + 称呼/身份 (call + person + title/role).

What does 别人 (biéren) mean exactly? Is it “everyone” or just “other people”?

别人 literally means “other people” / “others.”

In this sentence:

希望有一天别人会叫她画家。
= She hopes that one day other people will call her an artist.

It does not necessarily mean “everyone in the world”, just people besides herself: society, people around her, the public, etc.

If you wanted to emphasize everyone, you might say:

希望有一天大家都会叫她画家。
She hopes that one day everyone will call her an artist.

Why is it 画家 (huàjiā) here, and not something with 人, like 画画的人?

画家 is a profession/title: “painter / artist (who paints).”

家 (jiā) here is a suffix used for people who are specialists or professionals in a field:
- 作家 – writer
- 音乐家 – musician
- 科学家 – scientist

画画的人 literally means “the person who draws/paints.” It describes the activity but does not sound like a formal or recognized profession or title.

Using 画家 matches the idea that she wants to be recognized as an artist, not just “someone who draws.”

Could you rephrase the whole sentence in a more literal English structure to see how the parts map?

Rough, structure-focused rendering:

她每天下班以后都画画一会儿，
She, every day, after getting off work, always draws/paints for a little while,
希望有一天别人会叫她画家。
(and) [she] hopes (that) there will be one day (when) other people will call her (an) artist.

Putting it together more naturally:

Every day after work, she spends some time drawing. She hopes that one day others will call her an artist.