外国语中心

One use of 才 (cái) in Chinese grammar: only

In Chinese language, the character 才 (cái) is one of those very common parts of Chinese grammar that many students find difficult because it is so common and versatile. Here we’ll separate the grammatical uses of 才 into different types and look at it that way.
才 meaning “only”
才 can mean “only”, i.e. It implies that something is small or few in quantities. When used in this way, it very often appears with a measure word and a number. In this way it can express that “there are only x things”.
Have a look at an example:
A: 你怎么有那么多？
Nǐ zěnme yǒu nàme duō?
How come you’ve got so many?
B: 我才有两个！
Wǒ cái yǒu liǎng gè!
I’ve only got two!
We don’t know what these two people are talking about, but A seems to believe that B has a lot of it. B uses 才 to indicate that they don’t actually have a lot – they only have two.
Some more examples:
他才来过一次。
Tā cái láiguò yīcì.
He’s only been here once before.
现在才五点，太早了。
Xiànzài cái wǔ diǎn, tài zǎole.
It’s only five o’clock – it’s too early.
我们一共才有500块钱，完全不够。
Wǒmen yīgòng cái yǒu 500 kuài qián, wánquán bùgòu.
Altogether we’ve only got 500 bucks – it’s not enough at all.
Notice how in all of these examples there is a sense of a sequence. Maybe in the future there will be more, but at the moment we’ve only reached a particular amount or number.