Expressing "until" with "dao"

One of the cool features of Chinese is complements, and in this article we introduce a few of them.

One kind of complement in Chinese involves putting 到, 给 or 在 after the verb. These are used to indicate direction, target and location, respectively.

Complements with 到

到 (dào) indicates that the action has obtained a goal or a certain state.

我昨天晚上工作到 十二点半。Wǒ zuótiān wǎnshang gōngzuò dào shí'èr diǎn bàn.I worked until 12:30 last night.
我们一直等到天黑。 Wǒmen yīzhí děng dào tiānhēi.We waited until it was getting dark.
他们想在这里住到春天。 Tāmen xiǎng zài zhèlǐ zhù dào chūntiān.They want to live here until it's spring.
你们要玩到 什么时候 ？ Nǐmen yào wán dào shénme shíhou? When will you be done playing?

给 (gěi) indicates that you have passed something from one person to another.

我今天早上发了一封邮件给你。Wǒ jīntiān zǎoshang fā le yī fēng yóujiàn gěi nǐ.I sent an e-mail to you this morning.

在 (zài) indicates a person or thing coming to a certain place. It is usually followed by a location or a place.