How to say “What about it?” in Chinese

WHAT IS THE EQUIVALENT COUNTERPART OF “WHAT ABOUT IT?” IN CHINESE?

Usually when we chat with each other on something, and you wanna know the other person’s opinion and feelings about the thing you are talking about, you’d always ask:”What about it?”.

In Chinese, there’s a phrase that is right for this purpose:

zěn me yàng?

怎么样?

What about it?

Before we continue, please study the following new words first as we always do.

zěn me yàng	yīn yuè huì	jīng cǎi
怎么样(what about it)	音乐会(concert)	精彩(wonderful)

duō shao	duō cháng	duō hǎo
多少(how much, how many)	多长(how long)	多好(how well)

wū zi	xué sheng	nà tiáo hé
屋子(room)	学生(student)	那条河(that river)

zuò
做(do)

“WHAT ABOUT IT” IN CHINESE CONTEXT

For example, when your friend is telling you he went to a concert last night. You can use that phrase (actually that short sentence if it is used solely as a question) to let your friend tell you more about the concert:

Your friend:

wǒ zuótiān qù le yīnyuèhuì.

我昨天去了音乐会.

I went to the concert yesterday.

You:

zěnmeyàng

怎么样?

What about it?

Your friend:

é, hěn jīngcǎi!

哦, 很精彩!

Oh, wonderful!

Your friend most likely will continue on revealing more and more details about the concert.

THE VARIOUS USAGE OF “HOW” IN CHINESE

In fact, “怎么”means “how”. We’ve introduced “how” question pattern in How to ask questions in Chinese (2). Here we need to expand a bit more on this topic again.

For “how” questions, if the questioning part can be totally replaced by “how”, then “how” can be replaced by “怎么样”. If “how” is combined with other word, such as “how many”, “how long”, “how well” etc., then “how” should be replaced by “多…”:

how many -> 多少 (duō shao)

how long -> 多长 (duō cháng)

how well -> 多好 (duō hǎo)

It will be more clear once you’ve gone through the following examples:

wūzi lǐ yǒu duōshao xuésheng?

屋子里有多少学生?

How many students are in the room?

nà tiáo hé yǒu duō cháng?

那条河有多长?

How long is the river?

tā zuò dé yǒu duō hǎo?

她做得有多好?