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I've always been wondering how you would say, "I went to china both for travel and to study Chinese."

So if someone asked you, "你是去中国旅行的还是去学习汉语的?" (Did you go for travel or for study?), and you basically wanted to say "both reasons", would you use the 一边。。。一边。。。 structure?

Would this be correct? 我是去中国一边旅行一边学习汉语的。

Thanks in advance!

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  • Or much more simply you could use 两个都 for both in your reply...
    – Mou某
    May 31, 2016 at 4:12
  • E-C dictionaries: e.g. 英汉小词典(1977年2月第1版)。。。We must try hard to be both red and expert.我们要努力做到又红又专。 Grammars, e.g. "实用现代汉语语法"连词(conjunctions)"既。。。又。。。"与"又。。。又。。。"都表示并列的关系,但两者略有差别,"又。。。又。。。"中间的形容词‌​在意义上,是同向的,即要么都是褒义的,要么都是贬义的。比如"又高又大"、"又聪明又漂亮"、"天又黑又冷"、"这个人又歼又滑"。如果是动词短语,则一定表示经常一起出‌​现的动作。如"又蹦又跳"、"又打又闹"、"又气又恨"。而且在两个"又"之间的词语音节一般都比较短,长度也相同。"既。。。又 "中间为形容词时,基本上也是同向的,但如果动词或动词短语,限制就是小得多。例如(1)"既是成人,又是孩子"、"我们既要藐视敌人,又要为消灭敌人做好充分的准备"等‌​等。
    – user6065
    Jun 2, 2016 at 14:41

4 Answers 4

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In Chinese, there is no word, or even grammatical principles expressing the meaning "both".

Instead, we will say 我是去中国旅行学习汉语的。 Because clearly you are going to do two things at the same time, actually "both" is redundant. In Chinese, thus, just stop confusing in the word "both".

If you want to emphasize "both", like that in English, a good way, in my view, will be to emphasize the word "和" in Chinese.

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  • Hey. That's a brilliant explanation. Thanks very much for that.
    – Sulfly
    Jun 3, 2016 at 12:53
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In fact 一边。。。一边。。。 means doing two things at the same time, like 我一边学习一边听音乐 means I listen to the music while studying.

Here, you can say 我去中国既旅行又学习汉语。

既。。又。。 is an appropriate phrase to express that.

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Just reply 两者都是 in Chinese. or say 我去中国旅行同时学习汉语.

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  • Okay, what is the translation for 同时?
    – Sulfly
    Jun 2, 2016 at 0:09
  • 同时 means at the same time.
    – Iceglaze
    Jun 2, 2016 at 4:15
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都 can mean either 'both', or 'all'.. so you could simply say, 都是吧 whether it was 2 or 10 reasons.

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