Meaning Of 才对

[Lafaso870]

Hi everyone!

I have been watching a lot of Anime in Chinese lately, and this phrase 才对 has been used quite a lot at the end of a sentence.
However, I just CAN'T figure out what it means. No dictionary seems to have this, and even a search on the web doesn't help anything.

This is really frustrating...

It just seems it doesn't have any "real" meaning and is just a way of saying things...

If anyone of you knows what that means and how to use it, I would be really grateful

[candie111]

' it is right if you do like this /in this way ' almost this meaning

[Abun]

Hey Lafaso

this expression indeed doesn't actually add much in terms of meaning but places more emphasis on the statement (in most if not all cases a statement which would in English involve a "should"). The pattern is usually "应该x才对", meaning something along the lines of "x should be the case (or it wouldn't be right)".

For example, if you speak really good Chinese but your job doesn't have anything to do with it, your friends may say 你应该当中文翻译才对. "You should be working as a translator."

Or if you are talking to a friend and you discuss an old classmate but can't quite remember his name, he might ask: 是不是张俊？ "Wasn't it Zhang Jun?" Then you might answer: 不是，应该是江俊才对吧... "No, I think it was Jiang Jun..."

[suninoneusa]

A more effective way when you did something wrong, someone else had said