第四十一天

[nnozomi]

还是, "or" in questions"
https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Offering_choices_with_%22haishi%22

还是 also has a bunch of different usages, doesn't everything, but this one is just "X or Y" as used in questions. (I think.)

Guardian:
普通的什么呀？普通的绝世高手，还是普通的地星领袖啊？(Zhao Yunlan getting on Shen Wei's case for his reflexive "I'm just an ordinary..." "An ordinary what? An ordinary superstar, or an ordinary leader of Dixing?")
说吧，你是为了钱还是为了名？(Let's hear it, are you out for money or for fame?)
那请问你是中医还是西医吗？ (May I ask, do you practice Chinese or Western medicine?)

My practice:
你更喜欢红色的还是白色的？
你要喝热茶还是冷茶？现在是冬天吧，我当然喝热茶。
真的吴邪到底是谁啊？你还是他？

Comments

[trobadora]

but I think German comes closer than any other language I've attempted so far

Huh, really? I'm German too, but German doesn't feel different from English to me on that front ...

[elenothar]

Hmm, interesting. It's probably subjective to some degree, but I definitely find that English tends towards having more meanings for one word than German (sometimes even ones that don't go with each other, like 'chuffed') - more synonyms too. Plus the whole thing where a word can be both verb and noun (i.e. 'leap') without the distinction in format German tends to have.

[trobadora]

Good point about the verb/noun/other types of speech switching - English can do that easily because no verb endings, whereas German can't. Beyond that, I don't know- It's just subjective feeling on my part. I wonder if there's any statistical analysis across different languages - that would be fascinating to read ...