"what about "and "how about"

[Gloria Lo]

A: Is this your book?
B: No, it's not.
A: What about this one?

請問甚麼時候用What about? 何時用How about?
可以通用嗎?
我問過一個外國人，他答不太出來！也分不太出使用差異，請幫忙！

謝謝！

[technobabel]

The difference is "how about" is more involved than "what about",
as far as solicitation of decisions or opinions is concerned.

"what about..." implies that the person knows (more firmly) what he or she has in mind.
He or she just needs to see the item to recognize it or make a determination.
"How about..." suggests/subtly encourages the person to give an extra consideration.

[technobabel]

The more I read the explanation that I just gave in the previous post, the less it makes sense.
Let me try to give a more simple explanation.
If you are interested in somebody's opinion, you ask "what about..."
If you want to suggest something or determine the preference of certain individual you ask "how about..."
However, the differences aren't always cut-and-dry.

[Gloria Lo]

The more I read the explanation that I just gave in the previous post, the less it makes sense.
Let me try to give a more simple explanation.
If you are interested in somebody's opinion, you ask "what about..."
If you want to suggest something or determine the preference of certain individual you ask "how about..."
However, the differences aren't always cut-and-dry.

Thanks a lot for your reply.
According to what you said, can I use it like the following examples?
a. You don't like orange judice. How about a cup of tea?
b. The slide is still wet. How about playing swings.
c. that's not your book. What about this one?

Can anybody show me more examples,please.

[Sherry Liao]

Hi Gloria,

The following links provide some discussions on "what about" vs. "how about". Maybe you will be interested in them:

http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=107928
http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=157173
http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=199402
http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=419475

[Kooper]

Based on what Wayne said in previous replies and the links Sherry provided, I would say "how about" and "what about" are all but interchangeable. There is only subtle difference, if any, between them in several specific scenarios. The dilemma is no consensus has been reached in terms of which scenario is applicable and what the difference is. So, to make my life easiler, I would simply use them interchangeably.

[technobabel]

There are two examples of "how about..." that is quite commonly heard.

1. How about Chinese?

2. How about them Yankees?

The first one has to do with deciding which (ethinic) foods to eat.
The second one is a phrase that Yankees fans say to each other before starting a Yankees related conversation.

[toshi]

我覺得當在做建議的時候
兩者都可用
What/How about traveling to New Zealand with me?
What/How about going to KTV?

但有些情況我只會用 what about
比如說, 在問某件事的後續發展時
這件訂單後來處理的如何？ What about the order?

還有一個狀況會用 what about
比如說, 公司打算做出決策
而這個決策會損害到客戶 AAA 的權益
我提出來說...
那客戶 A 怎麼辦？ What about AAA?
總不能全然不顧到客戶 A 吧 We can't just......

[Gloria Lo]

Thank you for all of you.
Now I learned more about "what about "and "how about".

[technobabel]

This is the kind of question that only an English learner would ask.
For native speakers, question like this most likely never crossed their minds.
That doesn't mean they don't know the difference.
Sometimes the meanings of words are rooted deep within our linguistic minds.
Obviously, there is a difference in meaning between "what about.." and "how about"
Just because sometimes the difference can not be verbalized, we can't assume that there is no difference.
By now we should realize, it isn't always easy to decipher words with similar meanings.
Simple question often comes with complex answers or no answers at all.
It would be too dogmatic and problematic to proclaim that "what about..." and "how about..." are indeed interchangeable.

[Luis Ko]

i guess there might be different meanings for this two words at the very beginning, but somehow they are gradually interchangeably used, i don't know. i just think it might say how people use language that the usage of words could be changed. in my opinion, language is a tool for us to communicate with others, therefore, that would be fine as long as the ways the words we use can be recognized by most of people, and finally it might be able to be in common use as new rules or what. besides, if there are words or phrases that even most of native speakers cannot distinguish or verbalize the difference between them and some dictionaries also say they have the same meaning or are interchangeable then, i think there's no point to be too fussy about it.. although, sometimes i will, haaa

[Rock]

Hey, Luis, you are still alive!!!! Long long time no see la.

[Luis Ko]

of course i'm still alive but, just going to be inactive haa

[Rock]

Oh, come on, don't say that. It will be a loss for every English club if you go inactive. Besides, it's not good for a man, I mean, inactive.