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VOA慢速英语2019--Using Either, Or and Neither, Nor

时间:2019-04-13 19:56:31

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Today on Ask a Teacher, we answer a question from Mehdi in Iran. He writes:

Question: Please explain about either/or and neither/nor. – Mehdi, Iran

Answer:

Dear Mehdi,

The words either, or and neither are kinds of conjunctions1, or words that join parts of a sentence together.

Either…or

English speakers use either … or to talk about a choice between two things. On a beautiful spring day, one can say, "I will either ride my bicycle or walk to work." In this example, the structure with verbs is:

EITHER verb OR verb

You can also use either…or with nouns3. For example, when it is time to eat lunch, I may tell my coworker, "I feel like eating either Chinese or Indian food today. The structure is:

EITHER noun2 OR noun

We understand that the speaker will choose only one of the two things.

Neither…nor

We use neither … nor when the speaker will not choose from the options given. My friend is getting married at a seaside town in New Zealand. She says, “Neither rain nor snow will ruin the wedding.” The structure is the same here:

NEITHER noun NOR noun

You can use neither…nor with verbs, too. One can say, "My brother is very healthy - he neither smokes nor drinks." The structure is:

NEITHER verb NOR verb

But if a sentence already has a negative word like "not," it is more common to use either. For example, “Sandy does not play either football or cricket4.”

There are two ways of pronouncing either and neither. People in both the United States and Britain may say either with /i:/ at the beginning, as in "EE-thur" or with /ai/ at the beginning as in "EYE-thur." Choose one pronunciation and stay with it, so you will say the pair of words as "ee-thur" and "neethur" or say this pair: "eyethur" and "nyethur."

And that's Ask a Teacher.

I’m Jill Robbins.

Words in This Story

option – n. the opportunity or ability to choose something or to choose between two or more things


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1 conjunctions 91170b9479da1b719d90c1f7b5108e5f     
n.连词( conjunction的名词复数 );结合;联合;(恒星、行星等的)合
参考例句:
  • "And", "but"and"whereas" are conjunctions. and,but和whereas是连词。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • Prepositions and conjunctions are particles. 介词和连词是小品词。 来自《简明英汉词典》
2 noun JHux3     
n.名词
参考例句:
  • What kind of noun is this?这是哪类名词?
  • This word is a collective noun.这个词是个集体名词。
3 nouns 8412c0b251e0c60f78bfaf0a44ac3206     
n.名词;名词( noun的名词复数 )
参考例句:
  • French differs from English in having gender for all nouns. 法语不同于英语,所有的名词都有性。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • Nouns join to form compounds. 名词和名词结合构成复合词。 来自《简明英汉词典》
4 cricket zoKzP     
n.蟋蟀,板球运动;adj.公平的
参考例句:
  • The England cricket team scored quite a useful total.英格兰板球队得分总数令人满意。
  • We could hear the shrill of the midsummer cricket.我们可以听到仲夏时节蟋蟀的尖叫声。
  • Your behaviour isn't cricket.你的行为不光彩。

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