When to use 如何 and 怎么

[Eri120]

If I wanted to say "Mark and Jackson teach him how to play basketball" would I say

Mark 和 Jackson教他如何打篮球。or Mark 和 Jackson教他怎么打篮球。When is it appropriate to use 怎么 and 如何?

[Guest123]

如何 comes from classical chinese, and in modern chinese is used mostly in a litterary style or in some idiomatic expressions, in everyday language it's better to use 怎么. 

Your sentene "Mark 和 Jackson教他如何打篮球" is grammaticaly correct, but sounds a bit weird, as if you've been trying to make it stylish by using old or poetical words... in a situation which has nothing poetical   

[Kamille]

Well 如何 is certainly more literary than 怎么 but I wouldn't go so far as to ban it from spoken language. As a matter of fact it's actually very often used in oral speech. It's only a slightly higher speech level, that's all, and you can definitely say "Mark 和 Jackson教他如何打篮球" without it sounding weird, though indeed most of the time 怎么 will be used instead, as it belongs to a more "common register".