What is the difference between 那 and 要是 for "if"?
I'm using "Integrated Chinese" for a textbook, and first it says "______，那＿＿＿＿“（ex: 你不要看電影，那我們去跳舞）.
Then in a later section, it gives 要是, but it doesn't explain the differences between these two. (ex: 要是明天有空，我想去唱歌).
Is there a real difference between these two?
(And then to make things more confusing, I have a compact grammar book which covers "if", and I don't remember which words it gives, but it's none of these X_X)
Search from various English teachers...
Answers · 5
1
OK, acutally both of them are expressing conditional, but places in sentences where they were put are different.
For the first sentence, 你不要看電影，(那)我們去跳舞. It means" If you don't want to see movies, let's go dancing."
And for the second sentence,(要是)明天有空，我想去唱歌. It means"If I'm free tommorow, I'll go singing." So you could see the difference.
And actually, I guess the third word you get from the compact book is supposed to be "如果“, which means "if" also.
And "如果”="要是“, basically no exception.
And and usually, we use "如果' or"要是” combined with "那“. which means:
如果（要是）你不要看电影，那我们去跳舞。
如果（要是）明天有空，那我想去唱歌。
So now, you understand. They are not conflicting with each other. Sometimes we just save some word according to habit.
1
那 has a few meanings, however in your example：
那 = then; in that case, that being the case
你不要看電影，那我們去跳舞。
You don't want to go see a movie. That being the case, we'll go dancing.
要是 is quite a bit different than 那
要是 = if; suppose; in the event that...
In your example:
要是明天有空，我想去唱歌。
If there is time tomorrow, I want to go sing.
0
“那”表示结果。“要是”表示条件。“那”is sth like "so",and "要是"is sth like if
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