Difference in word order of these two adverbs: 再 又

Question

My teacher brought this up and now I want to know:

When there are two verbs in a sentence (one's a helping verb) and you want to use 又 or 再, why is their placement different?

I got these example sentences from a native:

昨天下雨，今天下雨了，明天又會下雨。

今天會再來。

It seems like when you use 又, it goes before both verbs, helping verb & main verb (會 & 下）

But when you use 再, it goes between the helping verb & main verb, 會 & 來 (unless you really do want to modify the helping verb itself, but usually that's not what people mean).

So...why do these two words for "again" not go in the same place in a sentence, even though they're both adverbs?

Don't know why, but the difference makes intuitive sense to me...I think.

Answer 1

I am trying to give two differences between 再 and 又 for you.

1. Originally, 再 means 'second time', 又 means 'second time', or 'third time', or even more. But now, 再 sometimes also means repeatedly. In this sense, the two words,再，又, are replaceable.

2. 再 emphasizes the two concepts (verbs/nouns) must be the same nature, while 又 is not limited.

The more important thing is to know some examples.

Usually, the 再 in the following examples can not be replaced by 又.

再見。          See you a second time, so it means 'see you', 'see you later', 'see you again', or 'Auf Wiedersehen' in German.
再會。          This sentence has the same meaning as 再見. 
一而再，再而三   Do the same thing once, twice, and three times, so it means 'again and again.
再三            Do the same thing twice and three times, i.e. it means 'again and again' too.

The 又 in the following examples can not be replaced by 再.

[既...又...]  襄兒既聰明,又可愛。   Xianger is not only bright but also cute.
[又...又...]  又驚又喜；又快又好    Shocked and happy； fast and good
[又名]        中國，又名海内，諸夏。 China is also known as '海内' or '諸夏'. 
              牛頓來了，又走了。    Newton came and then left.    

For your question, 再會下雨 is indeed a wrong expression. Let me try to make is clear.

再會下雨 means "again 'could rain' ". But once today is coming, 'could rain' will become 'rain' or 'not rain'. So the same thing 'could rain' will not happen again tomorrow. On the other hand, 會再下雨 means 'could rain again'. There is no problem in this expression.

昨天下雨，今天下雨了，明天又會下雨.  

In the above sentence, 又會下雨 is right, because 下雨 and 會下雨 can be joined by 又。

PS: Thanks for your interesting question. A piece of advice from me: I think you'd better learn from examples, it is helpful.

Answer 2

再 = again/ then (adv)

又 = too/ again (adv)

又再 = again (adv)

再 and 又 can be placed before or after the modal verb 會

The following are all grammatically correct:

• 明天又會下雨 tomorrow too, would rain

• 明天會又下雨 tomorrow would rain too

• 明天會再下雨 tomorrow would rain again

• 明天再會下雨 tomorrow again, would rain

It just happens that 又會 and 會再 are more popular than 會又 and 再會 in day to day speech

If you look at 又 or 再 as the shortened form of 又再(again), you can clearly see the modal verb 會 can be placed before or after the adverb:

• 明天(會)又再下雨 tomorrow (would) rain again

• 明天又再(會)下雨 tomorrow again, (would) rain

會又再 and 又再會 are equally common

Answer 3

I think this example sentence provided in the questions is a tricky one:

昨天下雨，今天下雨了，明天又會下雨。

While it appears that "又" here can mean "repeat" here, I'd say it might not be the case. This sentence may be translated to English as:

It rained yesterday, today, and it'll also going to be raining tomorrow.

... and the concept of "repeating" is not explicitly stated as a word in this sentence.

I feel like this use case of "又" is more of a junction word rather than a verb modifier. Which means it translates to "and".

Here's some examples of such:

1. 這書櫃外觀好看、又便宜。
2. 他才喝完了一瓶啤酒，又點了杯威士忌。
3. 錢包被偷了又遇上車禍

I'm guessing that's why "又" is placed between the last 2 subordinates in the example rather than right before the main verb.

And here are some examples where it does means "repeating" or "again":

1. 她又看了一遍這部電影
2. 又是一天過去了
3. 那輛車又出現在這個路口，應該是迷路了

... as in these cases, it's just placed before the main verb.

Answer 4

“又” means it is happened again, or it is/will passively happened
“再” means it will happen again, and should initiative happened