Yes - no questions with ma

The question particle 吗 is a very simple way to form questions in Chinese. By placing 吗 on the end of a statement, you convert it into a yes / no question. Surprisingly enough, these are questions that could be answered with yes or no in English. They're also known as polar questions or binary questions.

Any statement can be converted into a yes / no question with 吗. For example:

• 你 喜欢 咖啡。

"You like coffee" can easily be converted into "Do you like coffee?" by adding 吗:

• 你 喜欢 咖啡 吗？

You could think of 吗 as being like a question mark you say out loud. More examples of statements and their yes / no question forms:

• 你 是 警察。
• 你 是 警察 吗？

• 那 是 老虎。
• 那 是 老虎 吗？

• 他 是 老师。
• 他 是 老师 吗？

It's important to remember that you can not add 吗 to a sentence that's already a question. For example:

• 你 是 谁吗？
• 这个 是 不 是 书吗？

These would be something like "Do you who are you?" and "Does is this a book?" in English - obviously wrong.

However, this doesn't mean that a sentence can't have a question word and 吗. For example:

• 你 知道 这 是 什么 东西 吗？

This is OK because the original sentence "你知道这是什么东西" is a statement even though it contains the question word 什么. It's the same in English. "You know what this is" can be converted into the question "Do you know what this is?"

See also

• Tag questions with ma
• Positive negative questions
• Questions with ne

Sources and further reading

Books

• New Practical Chinese Reader 1 (新实用汉语课本1) (pp. 21) →buy
• New Practical Chinese Reader 1 (新实用汉语课本1)(2nd ed) (pp. 23) →buy