还是/或者
háishi / huòzhě
Hold the question mark at the fork and you get 还是
The picture You are standing at a fork. Hand the question mark to the other person and it's 还是; say either road is fine and put the question mark down, and it's 或者.
Where the picture shows up in 还是/或者
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the fork you hand over
你喝咖啡还是喝茶?
nǐ hē kāfēi háishi hē chá
Coffee or tea?
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either road is fine
咖啡或者茶都行。
kāfēi huòzhě chá dōu xíng
Coffee or tea, both work for me.
Put 还是 in a plain statement and it starts sounding like a question.
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pinning it to one of two
我们明天或者后天去。
wǒmen míngtiān huòzhě hòutiān qù
Let's go tomorrow or the day after.
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the road you picked after weighing
还是你来吧,我不太会。
háishi nǐ lái ba, wǒ bú tài huì
You do it — I'm not much good at it.
还是…吧 at the front of a sentence means having thought it over, let's rather do this.
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a fork with the question still inside
我不知道他去还是不去。
wǒ bù zhīdào tā qù háishi bú qù
I don't know whether he's going or not.
Even inside a statement, if a question sits in there, the word is 还是.