"和" and "跟"

Q: I gather the two words 'he' and 'gen' can both serve to join two nouns or noun phrases. Like' bread and butter' or 'ham and eggs', or so. What I have yet to gather, is what considerations determine, or at least suggest, which of the two you will employ in a given situation.

A: Grammatically speaking, both 'he2' and 'gen1' can be used as conjunction and proposition. As a conjunction, they share the similar meaning of "and, with". In my opinion, their only difference lies in the type of occasions and context in which they appear: 'gen1'is usually used in the informal spoken chinese while 'he2' can be used both formally and informally, mainly depending on its context.
For example,
Xiao Zhang went to the movies with Xiao Wang. - Xiao3 Zhang1 he2/gen1 Xiao3 Wang2 qu4 kan4 dian4 ying3 le.
President Hu and US President George W. Bush discussed Iran and DPRK nuke issues during their bilateral meeting. - Hu Jintao zhu3 xi2 he2 bu4 shi2 zong3 tong3 ...

July 17, 2006

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Other's review

Reviewer: echo Rating:: 3
sometimes,there are no differences between 和 and 跟。this belongs to individual speaking custom.you can say "you 和 I go to somewhere"，it is also equal to "you 跟 I go to somewhere"。but sometimes, "you 跟 I" also emphasizes on "you follow I".little difference.for your reference.:-)

Reviewer: Guest Rating:: 3
"gen" has more of a connotation "to follow behind," where "he" is a more general concept.

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