Offering choices with "haishi"

Revision as of 10:15, 15 May 2012 by Wu.mengmeng (talk | contribs)

还是 (háishì) is used in Chinese to provide options in a question. This is equivalent to one use of "or" in English.

Structure

Option A + 还是 + Option B

You can then put this into all kinds of questions with the following structure:

Subject + Verb + Option A + 还是 + Option B

Examples

还是 questions
Subject Verb Option A 还是 Option B
美国人 还是 英国人
喜欢 啤酒 还是 葡萄酒
医生 还是 老师
想吃 中国菜 还是 法国菜
很大的猫 还是 很小的老虎

Please note that 还是 is for offering options in a question. It should not be used for "or" in statements (see below).

See also

Sources and further reading

Books

Websites