Yes-no questions & content questions -是非问句和特指问句
This lesson is talking about yes-no questions and content questions in Chinese. Yes-no questions are questions that can be answered with “yes” or “no”. Content questions are used to ask about the identify of a person, an object, a time, a location, or a quantity, or to seek an explanation or process. In Chinese, questions and answers use the same word order. In this lesson, you will learn how to use the the particle “吗” to make yes-no questions, and how to use question words such as “什么” “谁” “哪” to make content questions.
1.Yes-no questions 是非问句
Statement turns into a question
Structure
Examples
How to answer yes-no questions
The interrogative sentences with “吗”, only need to answer “yes” or “no”. The easiest way to answer that is “是/不是”, another way to answer that is “verb/不+verb”.
Examples
2. Content questions 特指问句
In Chinese, the word order of interrogative and declarative sentences are identical. Interrogative words are placed at the same place as the thing you are asking about if the sentence is a statement.
What 什么
Examples
Who 谁
Examples
Which 哪
Examples
Note
When the interrogative pronoun “哪” is used in a question, the structure is “哪+ measure word + noun”.
For example:
How many 几/多少
The interrogative pronoun “几” is usually used to ask about numbers less than 10; the interrogative pronoun “多少” is usually used to ask about numbers larger than 10.
Examples
When 什么时候
Examples
Where 哪儿/哪里
“哪儿”often used in north of china;“哪里”often used in south of china.
Examples
Particle “吗” in content questions
The end of content questions should not be added the particle “吗”.
Examples
Sometimes, the particle “吗” can be added on the end of content questions, but at this point, the interrogative pronoun does not mean the interrogative in the sentence.
Examples
