In today's video lesson we’ll learn two ways to say "or" in Chinese with 或者 and 还是. And we'll also learn about Alternative Questions
So 或者 and 还是 both suggests offering options, and are usually translated as “or” in English. The difference is that, 或者 is offering options in a declarative sentence/a statement to offer options, while 还是 is usually offering options to ask a question.
We'll learn about 或者 first.
To use 或者 in a declarative sentence, we can use this structure, Option 1, Opition 2 or more, and put 或者 before the last Option (X), following this structure:
For example,
To ask a question that offers options for people to choose from, we can use 还是 instead of 或者. Questions like this are called Alternative Questions, 选择疑问句(Xuǎnzé Yíwèn Jù). To ask a question with 还是, there can be two structures.
For example,
Be careful that sometimes 或者 can be used in a question, but it is not used there as the structure that raises the question. For example,
In the above sentences, it is 哪个 and 吧 that is used as the structure that raised the question, not 或者.
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