What does 臨時 mean in this sentence?
From the Chairman's Bao article 朝鮮牡丹峰女子樂隊的演出被取消:
這次本來計劃在北京有三到五天的演出，臨時取消了讓大家都覺得很奇怪。
The CC-CEDICT definition is "at the instant sth happens / temporary / interim / ad hoc", and other dictionaries are similar. But nothing in the article makes it seem the cancellation was temporary. By "ad hoc" I assume it's something like "unexpected," is that the meaning here?
Posted Apr 12, 2016, 10:51 PM UTC
117
The best translation for this instance is 'on short notice'
It does not imply that the cancellation is temporary or the event is coming back.
If someone wants to confirm this, I'll add it to CC-CEDICT.
I agree that "on short notice" might be a good translation for this sentence, but it is not the definition of 臨時.
It's important to make a distinction between the meaning of words and the implications of those words, which vary a lot depending on context. In this context, 臨時 implies "on short notice," but the actual meaning of it is 「正當其時」 or "just (then/now)" as in the sentence: "I was already at the airport when they just cancelled my flight."
In this case, 臨時 / "just" has the same meaning as in your original, but "on short notice" would not be a good translation - in fact it was completely without notice and the person only found out after the fact (they were already at the airport). 臨時 does not say whether or when notice was given about an event, only that the event happened "ad hoc," which is equivalent to "just" in meaning but not something we often say in normal speech.
So in CC-CEDICT the correct definition here is "ad hoc."
The use of ad hoc is so generic that the definition might just be ad hoc itself.
If you want to cite this '正当其时' definition of 临时, might as well look at the second definition of '短时间的' here: http://www.zdic.net/c/4/151/335590.htm
Yes I can confirm that is a pretty accurate translation for the word.
Of course temporary and interim aren't wrong either, but not in this context.
Source: Myself. 'Natively bilingual' in Mandarin and English, from Singapore.
Thanks, u/aswlwlwl and u/rtyuuytr