тъкмо

Just Then and Exactly with Тъкмо

Level 4Sounds Like tʺkmo

Тъкмо излизах, когато звънна телефонът. (I was just leaving when the phone rang.) Тъкмо това исках. (That is exactly what I wanted.)

How It Works

1. Just at that moment. The tense shows the timing:

  • With the imperfect, the action was in progress: Тъкмо излизах, когато звънна телефонът. (I was just leaving when the phone rang.)
  • With the aorist, the action had only just been completed: Тъкмо заспах и бебето се събуди. (I had just fallen asleep when the baby woke up.)
  • With щях да, the action was about to start: Тъкмо щях да ти се обадя. (I was just about to call you.)

For something that has just happened in relation to now, току-що is the everyday choice: Току-що пристигнах. (I have just arrived.)

2. Exactly. Placed right before a word, тъкмо stresses it, like точно: Тъкмо това исках. (That is exactly what I wanted.) Пристигнахме тъкмо навреме. (We arrived just in time.) Тъкмо обратното. (Quite the opposite.) With numbers it means exactly, not only; for only use само.

3. Spelling. In fast speech the final о may sound like у, but it is always written тъкмо. See unstressed vowel reduction.

Examples (6)

  1. Тъкмо излизах, когато звънна телефонът.

    I was just leaving when the phone rang.

    The imperfect излизах shows the action was in progress.

  2. Тъкмо това исках.

    That is exactly what I wanted.

  3. Тъкмо заспах и бебето се събуди.

    I had just fallen asleep when the baby woke up.

  4. Тъкмо щях да ти се обадя.

    I was just about to call you.

  5. Пристигнахме тъкмо навреме.

    We arrived just in time.

  6. Тъкмо обратното.

    Quite the opposite.

Common Mistakes

  • Using тъкмо for English "just" in the sense of "only".

    Искам тъкмо едно кафе.
    Искам само едно кафе.

    The intended meaning is "I only want one coffee." Тъкмо means "exactly", so the sentence would say "I want exactly one coffee." For "only", use само.

  • Spelling the word as it sounds in fast speech.

    Тъкму това исках.
    Тъкмо това исках.

    The unstressed final о can sound like у, but the standard spelling is тъкмо.

How It Connects

Tap a pattern to see what it builds on and what it leads to.

тъкмоLevel 4Just Then and Exactly with Тъкмо

Learn This First

Тъкмо follows току-що.

Words in This Pattern

тъкмо