No. 2,394 in Chinese
否则
"Otherwise."
In a sentence
你必须认真完成作业，否则老师会生气。
You must complete your homework seriously, otherwise the teacher will be angry.
The word "否则" is used to introduce the potential consequence if the condition stated before it is not fulfilled.
赶快穿上外套，否则你会感冒。
Hurry up and put on your coat; otherwise, you will catch a cold.
Here, "否则" presents the outcome of not adhering to the imperative suggestion provided in the preceding clause.
时间不多了，我们必须加快速度，否则可能赶不上火车。
Time is short; we must speed up, otherwise we might miss the train.
In this sentence, "否则" connects the urgency action required due to the potential negative result of inaction.
Hear it in real podcasts
The recording above is a synthetic voice. Hear how people say “否则” in actual Chinese podcasts.
Find “否则” in podcastsLearn it from shows you like
LangTurbo plays Chinese podcasts with a transcript and the English under every line. Tap a word like this one and it tells you what it means right there. For iPhone, iPad and Android.
Learning English?
LangTurbo plays real English podcasts with every line translated into 中文, and tells you what any word means in that sentence. For iPhone, iPad and Android.
Chinese books and courses on Amazon (an affiliate link: a purchase through it supports this site).