Newsletter

In this live Chinese grammar lecture, we will learn the affirmative-negative sentence pattern in detail. Do you know what an affirmative-negative sentence is?
An affirmative-negative question is made up of affirmative and negative forms of the predicate; the responder chooses one, either affirmative or negative, to answer.

For examples:
1. Tā shì bú shì nĭ nǚpéngyou?
     她 是  不  是  你  女朋友？       
    Is she your girlfriend or not?

The responder might say:

      Tā bú shì wŏ nǚpéngyou.
  a.  她 不  是  我   女朋友。     
      She isn’t my girlfriend.

      Tā shì wŏ nǚpéngyou.
  b.  她 是  我    女朋友。        
      She’s my girlfriend.

Or we can simply answer: “是 (shì) yes” or “不是 (bú shì) no” instead.

2. Chāoshì de dōngxi guì bú guì?
         超市  的    东西   贵  不  贵？  
    Are the goods in the supermarket expensive or not?

Here, we can simply answer: “贵 (guì) expensive” or “不贵 (bú guì) inexpensive.”

Generally, we don’t use the interrogative pronoun or modal question word in the affirmative-negative sentence pattern, though we can use “呢 (ne) or 啊 (a)” at the end of the sentence. We never use “吗 (ma) or “吧 (ba)” in an affirmative-negative sentence.

For example:
Zhè dào tí nán bù nán a?
 这   道  题 难   不  难  啊？  
Is this question difficult or not?

The modal question word “啊 (a)” actually has no meaning; it just shows the emotion of the speaker.