On earth / exactly (究竟)

Structure 究竟 + question (what/who/how… really?)

究竟 (jiūjìng) goes inside a question to press for the real answer: "what on earth…?, exactly what…?". 你究竟想说什么？ = "what exactly do you want to say?". It reinforces the question word (什么/谁/怎么…). In statements it means "after all". It’s slightly more formal than 到底, its colloquial twin.

Examples

你nǐ究jiū竟jìng想xiǎng说shuō什shén么me？
What exactly do you want to say?
这zhè究jiū竟jìng是shì怎zěn么me回huí事shì？
What on earth is going on here?
我wǒ想xiǎng知zhī道dào究jiū竟jìng发fā生shēng了le什shén么me。
I want to know what really happened.

Levels are indicative: they follow the standard Chinese Grammar Wiki (AllSet Learning) progression, not an official HSK 3.0 mapping. We never assign levels by eye.

This point and the other 370, with audio on every example, inside Wanyu.