Basic Patterns of Chinese Grammar. Larry Herzberg

      This is BC unless you assume that dating always logically ends in marriage, which we know is painfully not the case!

      However, just as when it’s used in the future tense, ránhòu 然后 cannot be used with a negative clause with the past tense either, since ránhòu 然后 always implies a logical sequence of events.

      My father smoked for twenty years, but afterward he didn’t smoke any more.

      ✔ CC: Wǒ fùqin chōule èrshínián de yān, kěshì hòulái tā bùchōu le.

      我父亲抽了二十年的烟，可是后来他不抽了。

      ✖ BC: Wǒ fùqin chōule èrshínián de yān, kěshì ránhòu tā bùchōu le.

      我父亲抽了二十年的烟，可是然后他不抽了。

      Finally, no matter what the tense, you can always use yǐhòu 以后 after the verb in the first clause to mean “after” doing something or someone did, does, or will do something else:

      After she goes to class, she’ll go to work.

      Tā xià le kè yǐhòu jiù huì qù gōngzuò.

      她下了课以后就会去工作。

      Every evening after they watch TV, they go to bed.

      Tāmen měitiān wǎnshang kànle diànshì yǐhòu jiù shàngchuáng.

      他们每天晚上看了电视以后就上床。

      After she went to class, she went to work.

      Tā xiàle kè yǐhòu jiù qù gōngzuò le.

      她下了课以后就去工作了。

      Every evening after they watched TV, they went to bed.

      Tāmen měitiān wǎnshang kànle diànshì yǐhòu jiù shàngchuáng le.

      他们每天晚上看了电视以后就上床了。

      In NONE of the four examples above would you use ránhòu 然后 using the same sentence structure.

      After eating dinner, they want to go see a movie.

      ✔ CC: Chīle wǎnfàn yǐhòu, tāmen jiù yào qù kàn diànyǐng .

      吃了晚饭以后，他们就要去看电影。

      ✖ BC: Chīle wǎnfàn ránhòu, tāmen jiù yào qù kàn diànyǐng.

      吃了晚饭然后，他们就要去看电影。

      (4) “Last week, this week, next week” and “last month, this month, next month” follow the same pattern, with shàng 上 indicating “last . . . ,” zhè/zhèi 这 indicating “this . . .,” and xià 下 indicating “next . . .”

      last week (month)

      shàng(ge) xīngqī (yuè)

      上 (个) 星期 (月)

      this week (month)

      zhèige xīngqī (yuè)

      这个星期 (月)

      next week (month)

      xià(ge) xīngqī (yuè)

      下 (个) 星期 (月)

      However, days (tiān 天) and years (nián 年), the smallest and largest of the general time words, are expressed similarly to each other but differently from weeks and months:

      yesterday (last year)

      zuótiān (qùnián)

      昨天 (去年)

      today (this year)

      jīntiān (jīnnián)

      今天 (今年)

      tomorrow (next year)

      míngtiān (míngnián)

      明天 (明年)