Do you know the difference between “或者” (huòzhě) and “还是” (háishi)? In Brief Read these examples first: 你想喝茶还是喝咖啡？ Nǐ xiǎng hē chá háishi hē kāfēi? Do you want to drink tea or coffee? 我想喝茶或者咖啡。 Wǒ xiǎng hē chá huòzhě kāfēi. I want to drink tea or coffee. In...
In the beginning, many Chinese learners struggle to see the difference between two phrases: 的时候 (de shíhou) and 以后 (yǐhòu). In Brief Let’s have a look at how the meaning of one sentence changes depending on which word we use in it. 🔹昨天我写作业的时候，她在洗衣服。 Yesterday,...
想 (xiǎng) and 要 (yào) This post continues exploring the differences between Chinese modal verbs. Our learners have also noticed that modal verbs 想 (xiǎng) and 要 (yào) share the same meaning – they all can be translated as “to want”. However, they are...
会 (huì), 能 (néng) and 可以 (kěyǐ) Some Chinese learners have noticed that modal verbs 会 (huì), 能 (néng) and 可以 (kěyǐ) share the same meaning – they all can be translated as “can”. However, they are actually slightly different from each other depending...
“hé shì(合适)” and “shì hé(适合)” sometimes also cause trouble to Chinese learners as both words consist of exactly the same characters, the only difference is the word order. In addition, their meanings are very similar, what you need to remember is that “hé shì(合适)”...
“jiàn (见)” and “jiàn miàn (见面)” both mean “to meet, to see”. However, in order to express “A meets B”, the structures used are A + jiàn (见) + B and A + hé(和) + B + jiàn miàn (见面) respectively. Let’s have a look at some examples: English I want to see you. Chinese...
