hánjià de shíhou, hěn duō xuéshēng xiǎng huí jiā, yě yǒu rén xiǎng liú zài chéngli dǎgōng.

的 is linking the noun 寒假 (winter vacation) with 时候 (time / when).

• 寒假的时候 literally = “the time of winter vacation” → “during winter vacation / when it is winter vacation.”
• 的 here is like “of” in English and is standard after a noun when you use 时候:
  
  • 上课的时候 – when (it’s) class
  • 吃饭的时候 – when eating / at mealtime

In casual speech, sometimes you’ll hear …的时候 without 的, especially after short pronouns or very common words (e.g. 我小时候 – when I was small).

But with 寒假, the natural, standard version is 寒假的时候. Dropping 的 here would sound a bit off or overly colloquial, and many speakers simply wouldn’t say it that way.

You can say 寒假，很多学生想回家…, and people will understand you.

Differences in feel:

• 寒假的时候，很多学生想回家…
  Emphasizes “at the time of winter vacation”, a bit fuller and more natural in written or careful speech.
• 寒假，很多学生想回家…
  Feels more like a topic label: “(As for) winter vacation, many students want to go home…” It’s a bit more like a heading + comment.

Meaning-wise, they both refer to what happens during winter vacation. The original version with 的时候 just sounds smoother and more typical as a full sentence in textbooks and normal prose.

All three can appear, but they’re not used in the same way.

1. 很多学生 – most common, neutral

   • Literally “many students,” with 很多 directly modifying 学生.
   • No 的 and no measure word is needed here.
   • Very natural: 很多人, 很多老师, 很多问题.

2. 很多的学生 – more emphatic / descriptive

   • Slightly heavier and more “written.”
   • Used when stressing the group as a descriptive phrase, e.g.
     
     • 很多的学生都参加了这个活动。 – A great many students took part in this activity.

3. 很多个学生 – focusing on the count

   • Literally “many individual students / many units of students.”
   • Emphasizes the number as a count, not just a vague “many.”
   • E.g. if you’re counting complaints:
     
     • 很多个学生来找我。 – Quite a lot of (individual) students came to see me.

In this sentence, we just want the general idea “many students,” so 很多学生 is the most natural.

In this sentence:

• 想回家 = “want to go home / feel like going home / would like to go home.”
  
  • 想 + verb often has a softer, more “in one’s mind” feel: desire, wish, intention.

If you say:

• 要回家
  
  • Stronger sense of intention / plan: “(they) are going to go home / intend to go home.”
• 想要回家
  
  • Even more marked desire: “really want to go home,” often a bit emotional.

So:

• 很多学生想回家 – Many students would like / want to go home.
• 很多学生要回家 – Many students are going to / intend to go home.

The original uses 想 to describe their wishes, not definite arrangements.

All of these are grammatical but have slight differences:

• 回家 – the most common, neutral: “go back home / return home.”
  
  • 回 + place = go/come back to that place. No extra word is required.
• 回到家 – adds focus on the endpoint (arriving there).
  
  • 到 = to / reach a point.
  • Feels a bit more concrete: “return to home / arrive home.”
• 回家去 – emphasizes movement away from the speaker’s current location toward home.
  
  • Often used if the speaker is not at home and is thinking about going there.

In this general statement about students’ wishes, the simple 回家 is the most natural and least marked choice.

人 here stands in for “people / (some) people,” and it still refers to students from context.

The pattern:

• 很多学生想回家，
  Many students want to go home,
• 也有人想留在城里打工。
  and there are also people who want to stay in the city and work.

Using 人:

1. Avoids repetition of 学生. Saying 也有学生想… would be fine, but a bit repetitive.
2. Has a slight nuance of “some (of them)”:
   
   • 也有人想… ≈ “there are also some who want to…”

If you said 也有学生想留在城里打工, it still means “there are also students who want to stay in the city and work” and is perfectly correct. The original just uses the very common pattern 有人… to mean “some people…” with the group understood from context.

也 expresses “also / too / as well”, adding another group or situation on top of what was just mentioned.

• 很多学生想回家，
  Many students want to go home,
• 也有人想留在城里打工。
  and also (on top of that) some people want to stay in the city and work.

Using 还:

• 还 often means “still / furthermore / in addition,” and in this comparison between two types of students, 也 is more natural.
• 还有人想留在城里打工 is possible, and would emphasize “in addition, there are still (some) people who want to…” But 也有人… is the very standard pattern for “there are also people who…”

So here 也 smoothly connects the second option as a parallel alternative to the first.

• 留在 + place = stay/remain at/in (a place), often in contrast to leaving or going somewhere else.
  
  • 留在城里 – stay in the city (instead of going back home, for example).

Compare:

1. 留 alone:

   • 留在 is almost always followed by a place. Just 留 by itself often means “to keep / to leave behind”:
     
     • 留个电话 – leave a phone number
     • 把他留在家里 – keep him at home

2. 住在:

   • 住在城里 – live in the city (where your residence is).
   • 留在城里 – stay in the city (at least for now), focusing on the decision not to leave.

In the sentence, the contrast is: go home vs. stay in the city, so 留在城里 is exactly the right verb.

Here, 城里 = “in the city.”

• 城 literally means “city / town / fortified place.”
• 城里 is a bit shorter and more colloquial than 城市里.

You could say:

• 留在城里打工 – very natural, slightly colloquial.
• 留在城市里打工 – also correct, a bit more formal or explicit.

As for 在:

• 留在城里打工 already has 在 built into 留在.
• If you said 留在城市里打工, you still don’t need another 在, because 留在 + place already means “stay in (place) and work.”

So in this sentence, 城里 is just a natural, conversational way to say “in the city.”

打工 (dǎgōng) literally means “to do (wage) work,” and it usually carries these ideas:

• Working for someone else (not running your own business).
• Often part-time, temporary, or relatively low-level jobs.
• Very commonly used about students working during breaks or after class:
  • 做家教打工 – to tutor as a side job
  • 在餐厅打工 – to work in a restaurant

It’s not used for high-status professional jobs in the way 工作 is.

• 工作 is the general word: “to work / job / profession.”
• 打工 has the nuance of “doing wage-earning work, often side or temp work.”

So in 留在城里打工, the implication is that some students stay in the city to do temporary or part-time work during the winter vacation.

Mandarin usually doesn’t mark tense (past/present/future) the way English does. Instead, it relies on:

1. Time expressions – here 寒假的时候 (“during winter vacation”) sets the time frame.
2. Context – the surrounding sentences or the situation in which it’s said.

This sentence by itself could describe:

• A general, repeated habit:
  “During winter vacation, many students (typically) want to go home…”
• A future situation (e.g. teacher talking about the upcoming winter break):
  “This winter vacation, many students will want to go home…”

If you really need to make it clearly future, you could add something like 会:

• 寒假的时候，很多学生会想回家… – During winter vacation, many students will want to go home…

But often, context is enough, so no explicit tense marker is used.

时候 is pronounced shíhou:

• 时 – shí (second tone)
• 候 – hou (neutral tone)

In modern standard Mandarin, the second character in many common word pairs is pronounced with a neutral tone (轻声), which is lighter and shorter than a full tone. 时候 is one of those:

• Correct: shíhou (neutral 2nd syllable)
• Not standard: shíhòu (with a full 4th tone)

So if you hear the second syllable as “de‑stressed,” that’s because it’s supposed to be neutral tone.