"你要面条还是米饭?"
Translation:Do you want noodles or rice?
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338
Probably, because the sentence requires one to one correspondence: [Do] 你(you) 要(want) 面条(noodles) 还是(or) 米饭(rice) [?].
条 means "strips" or "threads". By itself, 面 means something like "Wheat". If you combine "wheat" and "package," you get 面包 - bread. If you combine wheat and powder, you get 面粉 - flour. So WHEAT noodles (because remember, there are also rice noodles and bean noodles) get called wheat strips, mian4tiao2. If you don't say the "tiao2" you might get confused just by "wheat".
But if mian4 is combined with something else, there is no confusion. chao mian (stir-fried noodle). niu rou mian (beef noodles).
1631
吗 is for questions that will be anwered with "yes" or "no". 还是 is for a question with 2 choices.
A statement with two possibilities uses 或者 (huozhe).
I am pretty sure that it does not matter which way around we say "noodles" and "rice". Right?
In English, the sentence "Do you want noodles or rice?" can be ambiguous -- though the inflection in speech would clarify.
It could mean "Do you want to eat noodles or do you want to eat rice?" (which thing do you want to eat?)
or
"Do you want to to eat -- either noodles or rice" (pick one or both or choose not to eat any)
How can this distinction be made in Chinese?