将信将疑

將信將疑
jiāngxìnjiāngyí
idiom

Meanings

  1. 1 half-believing, half-doubting
  2. 2 to be skeptical but not entirely dismissive

Examples

Tīng wán tā de jiěshì, wǒ háishi jiāngxìnjiāngyí.
After hearing his explanation, I was still half-convinced, half-doubtful.
Dàjiā jiāngxìnjiāngyí de kànzhe nàge mòshēngrén.
Everyone looked at the stranger with mixed belief and doubt.
Duìyú zhège xiāoxi, tā yīzhí jiāngxìnjiāngyí.
He has been skeptical about this news all along.

Tips

history
From Li Hua's Tang-dynasty elegy 《战场》: 将信将疑 — mourners half-believe, half-doubt tales of the ancient battlefield. The … pattern means 'now... now...' (simultaneously both).
grammar
The … construction here is a classical parallelism equivalent to … — 'both believing and doubting.' This is not the modern meaning 'will / in the future.'

Stroke Order

jiāng
xìn