---
title: "以…为… in Chinese Grammar: Take … as …, With Examples"
description: "以…为…: take … as …. Formal: regard or use X as Y. 2 real lines from stories, each word explained."
canonical: "https://mandarinthewild.com/chinese-grammar/yi-wei"
author: "Mandarin The Wild"
---

[Chinese grammar](https://mandarinthewild.com/chinese-grammar)

# 以…为…

Take … as …

熊猫xióngmāopanda

Formal: regard or use X as Y.

## In stories

孔明答：“大江之上，**以弓箭为先**。”

Kongming answered, "On the great river, bows and arrows come first."

[草船借箭 · Borrowing Arrows with Straw Boats](https://mandarinthewild.com/library/read/borrowing-arrows-with-straw-boats-three-kingdoms-advanced-chinese-13#library-word-72-77) HSK 7–9

这时，江东的孙权听说刘表病故，派谋士鲁肃**以吊丧为名**前来，暗中打探虚实。

Meanwhile Sun Quan of Wu heard that Liu Biao had died, and sent his adviser Lu Su, as if to mourn him, to find out how things really stood.

[喝断长坂桥 · Zhang Fei at Changban Bridge](https://mandarinthewild.com/library/read/zhang-fei-at-changban-bridge-three-kingdoms-advanced-chinese-10#library-word-926-931)

## Your turn

Write your own sentence with 以…为…. It's checked, and you'll see if the pattern is there.

[Read 草船借箭](https://mandarinthewild.com/library/read/borrowing-arrows-with-straw-boats-three-kingdoms-advanced-chinese-13#library-word-72-77)

## More patterns

- [为了…(而)… in order to …, …](https://mandarinthewild.com/chinese-grammar/weile-er)
- [把 + object + verb do something to … (and it ends up changed)](https://mandarinthewild.com/chinese-grammar/ba)
- [verb + 得 + complement says how something is done (how well, how much, with what result)](https://mandarinthewild.com/chinese-grammar/v-de-c)
- […的时候 when …](https://mandarinthewild.com/chinese-grammar/de-shihou)
- [verb (+ 了) + duration (for how long) for … (how long … lasts)](https://mandarinthewild.com/chinese-grammar/duration)
- [verb1 + 着 + verb2 (doing 2 while/by doing 1) do something while …; do it by …](https://mandarinthewild.com/chinese-grammar/v-zhe-v)

## Now read them in a real story

[**十两饺子**How to order dumplings in ChineseHSK 1 · 1 minRead it free](https://mandarinthewild.com/library/read/how-to-order-dumplings-in-chinese)

## What does 以…为… mean in Chinese?

Take … as …. Formal: regard or use X as Y.

## How common is 以…为…?

It comes up in 2 readings of the 462 stories and articles in our free Library.

## Does it correct my mistakes?

The finder doesn’t: it shows which patterns a text uses and what each one does. To have a sentence you wrote corrected, with each mistake explained, use the Chinese grammar checker.

## More free tools

- [Chinese grammar checker](https://mandarinthewild.com/chinese-grammar-checker): your mistakes fixed
- [Chinese dictionary](https://mandarinthewild.com/chinese-dictionary)
- [Measure words](https://mandarinthewild.com/measure-words)
- [How hard is this text?](https://mandarinthewild.com/text-level)
- [Free Chinese stories](https://mandarinthewild.com/library)

Patterns found by our own parser; lines from our free Library.