Dear teachers,

 

 

I'm helping a As student with the essay writing, and I find that he likes to use '以为' to express the meaning of 'think' while sometimes I think it is better to say '觉得'. For example, in his essay, he wrote that:

 

我以为与中国年轻人见面是很有意思的。虽然他们生活在一个完全不同的国家，我们却有很多相似性。

 

I suggested him to use '觉得' instead of '以为', because I think the first sentence implies some different opinion afterwards, like '..., but they turned out to be different from what I thought.'

 

I checked the Contemporary Chinese Dictionary; both words share the same meaning of 'think' '认为':

我觉得应该先跟他商量一下。

I think it is ok to use 觉得 in the second sentence, but it sounds unnatural to me to put 以为in the first.

 

Is my understanding appropriate? Can anyone help me to explain the difference between these two to my student? 

 

Thanks a lot!

 

regards,

 

Hanghang Huang