Asking yes/no questions with 嗎

English asks a question by rearranging the sentence. You are a student becomes are you a student, and the verb jumps to the front. Chinese moves nothing. You say the statement, then put 嗎 on the end.

That is the whole mechanism, and it works on anything you can already say. Every statement you have learned is also a question, which makes 嗎 the cheapest thing in the language to learn and worth using from your first week.

Note that 嗎 is toneless. It is written with the first-tone mark in some textbooks, but nobody says it that way — it is a light syllable that hangs off the end of the sentence, and giving it a full tone is one of the things that makes a beginner’s Chinese sound recited.

嗎 only asks for yes or no

This is the one rule worth remembering, and the mistake almost everyone makes once. 嗎 asks the listener to confirm or deny. If the sentence already asks for information — what, who, where, when — it is a question without 嗎, and adding one is wrong rather than merely redundant.

The same applies to 誰, 哪兒, 幾 and the rest. One question marker per sentence.

Answering one

There is no word for yes in Chinese. You answer a 嗎 question by repeating the verb, and you say no by negating it.

對 and 不對 also work for confirming or denying a whole statement, and 好 answers a suggestion. But the repeat-the-verb pattern is the one that always works, and it is worth making a habit before reaching for anything else.

Asking negatively

Putting 嗎 on a negative statement asks the same kind of question English asks with isn’t or don’t — usually mild surprise at something you expected to be otherwise.

Answering these is where English speakers trip, because English answers the speaker’s expectation and Chinese answers the fact. To confirm that he is indeed not coming, you say 不來 — not coming — where English would say no, he isn’t or, confusingly, yeah, he isn’t.