#SpokenTuesday here with a useful tool to add to your language toolkit 🔧
Imagine you just made a work-related payment, but it appears to have been rejected. So you ask your colleague:
🇬🇧Could you please check [whether or not] our payment was rejected?
In Chinese, it will change into:
🇨🇳 Could you please check our payment [是否 shì fǒu] was rejected?
⭐️
是 shì – to be; is
否 fǒu – no; not
⭐️
是否 shìfǒu – whether or not; if
⭐️⭐️
It’s a bit more formal than 是不是 shì bú shì, or 有没有 yǒu méi yǒu:
👨🏻💼你问一下…是否有问题
Nǐ wèn yíxià … shìfǒu yǒu wèntí
Ask [if] there’s any problem with …
(= 有没有问题)
So it works great for polite requests to your colleagues or clients:
👩🏻💼你看一下是否有不明白的地方
Nǐ kànyíxià shìfǒu yǒu bù míngbai de dìfang
Check [if] there’s anything unclear
(= 有没有不明白的地方)
Or for polite requests to your superiors:
👨🏻💻 还请确认是否OK
Hái qǐng quèrèn shìfǒu OK
Please confirm [if] that’s all right
(= 是不是OK)
⭐️⭐️⭐️
How would you ask a colleague “Ask whether or not they have time to meet on Monday?”
(Literally, “Ask-一下-they-Monday-whether or not-have-time-to meet”)
