dan shi or ke shi?

[Weronika]

但是 or 可是

which do you use for 'but'

[yonitabonita]

Both '但是‘ and ’可是' mean 'but'.

我想去但是我没有空

我想去可是我没有空

both mean the same thing.

[gougou]

You can differentiate by using 不过, which is not quite as strong as 但是 or 可是.

[Weronika]

ok so it isn't any difference

thank you:wink:

[Weronika]

To go:

走 or 去

zou or qu?

I think I'll never learn chinese

[Kong Junrui]

走 means "to go," in the sense of departure, or leaving some place.

去 is a more literal "to go," as in the action preformed while moving in between places.

So, if you wanted to say "let's go," or "let's leave," like "let's get outta here," you might say “我们走吧"

But if you wanted to say something like "why don't we go to my house," I think it would be something like "我们去我的家,好吗?"

See the difference?

[Weronika]

yes I see now, thanks!

not easy, but I won't give up

[andychao]

Hi, ZOZO:

you are really issuing a tough question. in Chinese, it's really almost the same, either of them can instead the other, however, In oral Chinese, we use 可是 a bit more. for the writing, expecially for the formal writing, it's not good to use 可是, we normally use 但是.

all in all, it's really hard to tell the exact difference, even for native Chinese, they can hardly distinguish..hope it helps.

[tanhql]

走 focuses on the walking action. 去 focuses on the destination.

走路 to walk

要去哪里？ where are we going?

走去哪里？ where are we walking to?

去学校啦！go to school!

可是 is more of a spoken form. 但是 is more of a written form, and spoken only in formal occasions, like debates, speeches or important meetings. you can interchange both.

[Weronika]

oh thanks. Now it's clear!

It's difficult because I'm learning on my own so I don't feel these little differences. (but fortunately here you are )

[Hero Doug]

A lot of people spoke of a difference between words used for writing, and one's for speaking.

I'm just wondering how much of an ass I'll sound like if I use writing words while speaking? I know in English, it wouldn't matter, you may just sound like a boring text book.

[tanhql]

you'll just sound very formal. 但是 is more often used like '但是我们不能忽略... ' like in debates or speeches. 可是 is used more often in daily life events.