到底／毕竟／终于／究竟

[xh207hi]

Hello,

in exercise book I got a question: what does 到底 mean in a sentence: 到底是年轻人干脆...

The possible answers are as follows: 毕竟，终于，究竟

 

Now this leads me to the question: what's the difference in use/meaning of those four words?

I was once told that 到底 can be only used in a question; is this a true and fixed rule?

 

Thank you for your help,

 

 

 

 

PS: And btw, is 干脆 used here as a verb?

[anonymoose]

I guess 究竟, but what's the full sentence?

[xh207hi]

到底是年轻人干脆，他睫毛都不眨地说：“我每月200块钱就行了”。Didn't really see if writing it in full would help, that's why I didn't do it, but maybe there might be a hint...?

[dwq]

If you can't answer the question, you shouldn't assume there's enough context by posting just part of it.

干脆 can be used as an adjective or an adverb, but was hard to tell which from the fragment in the first post.

[arreke]

In this sentence it means 毕竟

For instance, in the following example 毕竟 is interchangable with 到底：

[Messidor]

the best choice would be 毕竟. But in literature of eatlier times, 到底 is acceptable.

毕竟 means after all / anyway. 终于 means finally. 到底 and 究竟 belong to a special type of adverb (that unique to chinese and japanese), 语气副词, it means they have "emotinal" functions in sentences.你去不去 means simply "r u going or not", 你到底去不去 may be translated into "damnit r u going or not" except for the rudeness of the word damn. 究竟 can replace 到底 in this example, but the former may sound milder and a little bit formal

[Messidor]

btw 究竟 is also a noun. It means "the whole story, the reasons and outcomes, or the details". Eg. 他想知道个究竟，所以问了很多人.(he wants to know all about it so he asked many people(for help)).

[xh207hi]

dwq, my way of thinking was "if I don't get closer to the answer by reading the full sentence, neither would anybody else". I should have posted the full sentence anyway, my bad, sorry. Thank you for your help.

 

And thanks to arreke for the video and Messidor for lots of examples.