How to express “be about to” in Mandarin Chinese?

Do you want to know how to express “something is about to happen” in Mandarin Chinese? Typical structures you can use are: (快 (transcribed kuài) /就 (transcribed jiù)) 要 (transcribed yào) ...了 (transcribed le, meaning “be about to”), which indicate an action or a change of state of affairs is going to take place soon. For example,

The word 要 (transcribed yào) is used before the verb 开 (transcribed kāi, meaning “to take off”) , and 了 (transcribed le) is used at the end of the sentence. 要 and 了 tend to be used together as a pair; missing either would not convey the intended meaning. For example, 飞机要开 (transcribed Fēijī yào kāi, meaning “The plane is taking off”) is not grammatically correct, and 飞机开了 (transcribed Fēijī kāi le) means the aircraft has already taken off. Therefore, neither of them in isolation can express the meaning of “the plane is about to take off” appropriately. Let’s dive in to get more information about these structures.

The structure of 要 (transcribed yào) ... 了 (transcribed le) is used to express “something is about to happen.” 要 (transcribed yào) can combine with a verb (e.g. “run”) or an adjective (e.g. “red”), where 要 (transcribed yào) here means “soon will.” 了 (transcribed le)(le) indicates a change of state/situation.

For example:

In the above example, 要 (transcribed yào) ... 了 (transcribed le) combines with the action 走 (transcribed zôu, meaning “to leave”) to say that the action will happen in the immediate future.

In this sentence, 要 (transcribed yào) goes with the adjective 红 (transcribed hóng, meaning “red”) to indicate a change of color is imminent.

The structure of 要 (transcribed yào) ... 了 (transcribed le) can combine with 就 (transcribed jiù, meaning “at once”) to form another version of “be about to.” 就 should be placed before 要 (transcribed yào). For example,

The word 快 (transcribed kuài) means “soon,” “quickly” and can be added before the structure 要 (transcribed yào)… 了 (transcribed le) to mean something is about to happen. For example,

Similar to the structure 就要 (transcribed jiù yào) ... 了 (transcribed le), 要 in the structure of 快要 (transcribed kuài yào) ... 了 (transcribed le) can also be omitted to become 她快来了 (transcribed Tā kuài lái le), which means the same as 她快要来了 (transcribed Tā kuài yào lái le).

There is a difference between 快要 (transcribed kuài yào) and 就要 (transcribed jiù yào) : 就要 can be used with time phrases that are placed in front of the whole sentence, but 快要 cannot. For example,

Now that you know how to express “be about to,” it is time to put your knowledge into practice. Click here to begin the exercises!