Breakdown of zhōumò wǒ bù xiǎng zài kāfēiguǎn dǎgōng, zhǐ xiǎng gēn jiārén zài jiā ānjìng de chīfàn.
Questions & Answers about zhōumò wǒ bù xiǎng zài kāfēiguǎn dǎgōng, zhǐ xiǎng gēn jiārén zài jiā ānjìng de chīfàn.
Putting 周末 at the beginning sets the time frame first, which is very common in Chinese. The typical order in Chinese is:
Time – Subject – (Adverb) – Verb – Object
So 周末我不想在咖啡馆打工 follows that pattern:
周末 (time) + 我 (subject) + 不想 (adverb + verb) + 在咖啡馆打工 (place + verb).
You could also say:
- 我周末不想在咖啡馆打工。
That’s also natural and often used.
But something like:
- 我不想周末在咖啡馆打工。
is possible but sounds a bit more marked/emphatic, like stressing “on weekends (not other days).”
So: sentence-initial 周末 is natural and very standard; moving it after 我 is also fine.
打工 (dǎgōng) means “to work” but with a specific flavor:
- It usually refers to part-time work, temporary work, or low-level jobs, often done by students or migrant workers.
- It’s not used for “I work as a lawyer/banker/etc.” That would usually use 工作.
So in this sentence, 在咖啡馆打工 suggests:
- working part-time or casually at a café (maybe as a barista, waiter, etc.), not a formal long-term career job.
In Chinese, the pattern is usually:
不 + 想 + Verb phrase
Here, the verb phrase is 在咖啡馆打工 (“work at the café”).
- 不想在咖啡馆打工 = “do not want to work at the café.”
If you said 不在咖啡馆想打工, it would literally be:
- “(I) am not at the café wanting to work,”
which is ungrammatical or at least very strange, because 不在 would be negating the location, not the wanting.
The negative 不 comes directly before the mental verb 想 to negate the desire, not before 在.
Both can translate to “don’t want,” but they’re used differently:
不想 = “not want to / don’t feel like (doing something)”
- Focuses on your inner desire or preference.
- 我不想打工。 = “I don’t want to work.”
不要 = “don’t (you) do X / don’t want (X as an object)”
- Can be a command: “Don’t do it!”
- Or “don’t want (something)” as a thing: 我不要咖啡。 = “I don’t want coffee.”
In this sentence, it’s about the speaker’s preference or feeling:
我不想在咖啡馆打工 → “I don’t want to work at the café (I don’t feel like it).”
不要在咖啡馆打工 would sound more like telling someone “Don’t work at the café.”
只 (zhǐ) means “only / just.” It limits the action that follows:
- 只想 = “only want to / just want to”
So:
- 不想在咖啡馆打工 = “(I) don’t want to work at the café,”
- 只想跟家人在家安静地吃饭 = “(I) only want to quietly eat at home with my family.”
The contrast is:
Not A, only B.
不想 A， 只想 B。
跟 (gēn) here means “with”:
- 跟家人吃饭 = “eat with (my) family.”
You can also say 和家人吃饭; in this context they’re interchangeable and both common.
Subtle differences:
- 跟 often has a “together with / along with” feel and is very common in speech.
- 和 is slightly more neutral; in some contexts it feels a bit more formal or written, but in everyday speech people also use 和 a lot.
So both 跟家人 and 和家人 are fine here.
在 (zài) here is a preposition indicating location:
- 在咖啡馆打工 = “work at the café”
- 在家安静地吃饭 = “eat quietly at home”
Structure:
在 + place + Verb (… )
So 在 doesn’t mean “to be” here like in 我在北京 (“I am in Beijing”). It’s functioning as “at/in” to introduce the place where the action happens.
You could omit 在家 and just say 跟家人安静地吃饭, but you’d lose the explicit “at home” nuance.
Chinese has three common de particles: 的, 得, 地. Here it’s 地.
- 安静 (ānjìng) is an adjective: “quiet.”
- 安静地吃饭 ≈ “to eat quietly” → “quietly eat.”
地 after an adjective turns it into an adverbial phrase modifying the verb:
Adjective + 地 + Verb
So:
- 安静地吃饭 → eat in a quiet way / eat quietly.
Why not 的 or 得?
- 的 mainly links adjectives to nouns:
- 安静的家 = “a quiet home”
- 得 usually comes after a verb to describe the result/manner:
- 吃得很安静 = “eat very quietly” (literally: “eat-de very quiet”)
- 地 comes between an adjective and a verb to make an adverbial:
- 安静地吃饭 = “quietly eat.”
So 地 is the correct de to use before the verb 吃饭.
饭 (fàn) by itself can mean rice or a meal, but 吃饭 (chīfàn) is a set phrase that simply means “to eat (a meal)” or “to have a meal” in general.
- It doesn’t necessarily mean “eat rice.”
- In many contexts, 吃饭 is more natural and idiomatic than just 吃 for talking about having a meal.
So:
- 吃饭 = “have a meal / eat (food)” in general.
- 吃 alone is also fine if the context is clear, but 吃饭 is the default way to talk about “having a meal.”
The comma marks a pause between two verb phrases with the same subject:
- First part: 周末我不想在咖啡馆打工，
- Second part: 只想跟家人在家安静地吃饭。
There’s no explicit “but” or “and” in Chinese here. The contrast is understood contextually:
- “(I) don’t want to work at the café, (I) only want to eat quietly at home with my family.”
You could add a word like 而是 (“but rather”) to make the contrast explicit:
- 周末我不想在咖啡馆打工，而是只想跟家人在家安静地吃饭。
But in everyday speech/writing, just using the comma is very natural and enough to show the relationship.
Chinese often omits repeated subjects when they’re clear from context.
The subject 我 appears in the first clause: 周末我不想在咖啡馆打工.
In the second clause 只想跟家人在家安静地吃饭, it’s still understood to be 我, so it can be dropped.
You could say:
- 周末我不想在咖啡馆打工，只想跟家人在家安静地吃饭。 (more natural)
- 周末我不想在咖啡馆打工，我只想跟家人在家安静地吃饭。 (also correct, slightly more emphatic or formal)
Both are grammatical; the shorter one is just more concise.
No. 家人 (jiārén) already means “family members” or “my family (as people).” It’s inherently a collective noun, so you don’t add 们.
- 家人 = family member(s), the people in one’s family.
- 我的家人 = my family members.
家人们 is occasionally used in some informal or rhetorical contexts (like addressing a group online, “Hey, family!”), but in normal sentences about your actual family, 家人 is standard:
- 我想跟家人吃饭。 = “I want to eat with my family.”
周末 (zhōumò) by itself is vague on purpose; context decides:
- It can mean “on the weekend” (this upcoming one),
- Or “on weekends in general” (habitually).
In this sentence, without extra context, it most naturally reads as “this/that coming weekend” or “the weekend we’re talking about.”
If you want to explicitly say every weekend, you can say:
- 每个周末我都不想在咖啡馆打工，只想跟家人在家安静地吃饭。
(“Every weekend I don’t want to work at the café; I just want to eat quietly at home with my family.”)
Yes, that sentence is also correct and natural. You’ve just reversed the order of the two contrasted clauses:
Original:
- 周末我不想在咖啡馆打工，只想跟家人在家安静地吃饭。
→ “On weekends I don’t want to work at the café; I only want to eat quietly at home with my family.”
Reordered:
- 周末我只想在家跟家人安静地吃饭，不想在咖啡馆打工。
→ “On weekends I only want to eat quietly at home with my family; I don’t want to work at the café.”
This version slightly foregrounds what you do want, then adds what you don’t want. Both are grammatical; the nuance is just where you put the emphasis.