“到底” and “终于” are two adverbs often seen when students learn Chinese in China but students often fail to tell them apart because they are very similar in meaning and application. Both of them carry the meaning that some certain conditions happen at last. In order to tell them apart, we will explain some tiny differences between them.

The word “到底” has three levels of meanings. The first one should be that some kinds of result happen after a complex process. For example, we can see “经过一番曲折，事情终于成功了”. Students who in Mandarin learning courses may know that it can be used in interrogative sentence for further questioning like “你到底去不去”.

In addition, it can also be used in the declarative sentence to emphasize the reasons or features. When foreign learners who study in China, they may often hear people say “到底是小孩，这些道理他还不太懂”. When we use “终于”, the following contents are usually the situations will happen like “你终于来了” and “比赛终于结束了”.

Another group of words that the learners in Chinese language school often hear are “得意” and “满意”. Both of the two words indicate people feel satisfied. However, the usage is quite different because of the different parts of speech. The former is an adjective and the later is a verb.

When functioned as an adjective, the word “得意” means people are so satisfied that they want to show off. It is a word with negative meaning because it implies people are conceited and self-satisfied. Students often hear when they study Chinese is “得意忘形”.

However, the word “满意” is a verb. When foreigners learn Mandarin at school, they should notice that it can’t be followed by the objects directly. If we want to add object, we should also add the preposition “对”, forming the structure “对……满意” like “对这件衣服的颜色我很不满意”.

These two groups of words explained above are often seen and also important for students to learn. Teachers should explain them in detail and students should practice more in daily talk.