Today my expat friends were working on their Vietnamese language test and one question they didn't get was the difference between "hay" and "hoặc", which they thought both mean "or" in a general English translation.
However, these two words have different connotations. After some researches, I figure it would be an interesting piece of information to note down for future reference:
"Hay" has a more optional connotation to it. You can use "hay" in sentences which you are not so sure about whether it should be option A, option B, either A&B or even neither of them. "Hay" is quite flexible in application, you can use the word in most types of sentence.
"Hoặc" has more of a confirmation connotation in it. And when using this word, it's usually for a definite A or B options. People don't usually use "hoặc" in questions.
It's interesting to learn about the connotation of the language, isn't it? I found it just as exciting when learning about different connotations of English words, and there are always new things to learn each day!
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