The everyday, go-to way to ask a yes/no question in Chinese is the 吗 (ma) construction: build a normal statement, leave it completely intact, and hang 吗 on the end. That's the entire operation. As the word-order overview stresses, nothing about the sentence changes — no inversion, no helper verb, no reordering. 吗 is a toneless sentence-final particle whose one job is to take a proposition and poll it: "is this true — yes or no?" This page treats 吗 as a question-formation tool (how you build the question and answer it); for its behavior as a sentence-final particle among 呢, 吧, 啊, see the 吗 particle page.
Building a 吗 question from a statement
Think of it as a two-step recipe: (1) say what you want to check, as a plain statement; (2) add 吗. The subject stays first, the verb stays put, objects stay in place.
| Statement |
|
|---|---|
| 你是老师 (you're a teacher) | 你是老师吗？(are you a teacher?) |
| 你有时间 (you have time) | 你有时间吗？(do you have time?) |
| 你今天上班 (you work today) | 你今天上班吗？(are you working today?) |
| 这是你的 (this is yours) | 这是你的吗？(is this yours?) |
你是老师吗？
nǐ shì lǎoshī ma
Are you a teacher? (neutral) — statement 你是老师 kept whole, 吗 added.
你今天上班吗？
nǐ jīntiān shàngbān ma
Are you working today? (informal) — a real everyday opener; word order never shifts.
这家餐厅现在还开着吗？
zhè jiā cāntīng xiànzài hái kāi zhe ma
Is this restaurant still open now? (informal) — even a longer statement just takes 吗 at the very end.
A yes/no net, not an open question
A 吗 question hands the listener a complete proposition and asks them to accept or reject it — it's a closed, yes-or-no net. That's the opposite of a question-word question (谁/什么/哪儿), which leaves a blank for the listener to fill in. Because the two do fundamentally different jobs, they never co-occur: if there's a question word, there's no 吗.
你有时间吗？
nǐ yǒu shíjiān ma
Do you have time? (informal) — a yes/no net over the proposition 'you have time'.
你会开车吗？
nǐ huì kāichē ma
Can you drive? (informal) — polling whether 'you can drive' is true.
Asking about a negative: 你不…吗？
Because 吗 simply polls whatever statement you feed it, you can just as easily poll a negative one. 你不去吗？ checks a negative you half-expected — English reaches for "aren't you…?" / "don't you…?" / "haven't you…?" Chinese keeps the negation right where it sits in the statement and adds 吗 as usual.
你不去吗？大家都在等你呢。
nǐ bú qù ma? dàjiā dōu zài děng nǐ ne
Aren't you going? Everyone's waiting for you. (informal) — 吗 poured onto the negative statement 你不去.
你还没吃饭吗？我给你留了点。
nǐ hái méi chīfàn ma? wǒ gěi nǐ liú le diǎn
You haven't eaten yet? I saved you some. (informal) — 还没…吗 checks an unmet expectation.
你不喜欢这个颜色吗？
nǐ bù xǐhuan zhège yánsè ma
Don't you like this color? (informal) — negative statement + 吗, no restructuring.
Answering: echo the verb
Chinese has no all-purpose "yes." You answer a 吗 question by repeating the verb — affirmed to say yes, negated to say no. Only when the verb happens to be 是 does "yes" look like 是. (For the full answering system, the 吗 particle page has the complete run-down.)
——你会开车吗？——会，但我很久没开了。
— nǐ huì kāichē ma — huì, dàn wǒ hěn jiǔ méi kāi le
'Can you drive?' 'Yes, but I haven't driven in ages.' (informal) — the answer echoes 会, not a word for 'yes'.
——你饿吗？——有点儿。
— nǐ è ma — yǒudiǎnr
'Are you hungry?' 'A little.' (informal) — you answer with the relevant word, never a reflex 'yes'.
Common Mistakes
1. Adding 吗 to a sentence that already has a question word. A question word already asks; 吗 has nothing left to poll.
❌ 你想吃什么吗？
Incorrect — 什么 already makes it a question; drop 吗 (你想吃什么?) or drop 什么 (你想吃东西吗?).
✅ 你想吃什么？
nǐ xiǎng chī shénme
What do you want to eat? (informal) — question word, no 吗.
2. Stacking 吗 onto an A-not-A question. A-not-A is already a full yes/no question; pick one strategy.
❌ 你去不去吗？
Incorrect — 去不去 is already a question; say 你去吗? or 你去不去?, not both.
✅ 你去吗？
nǐ qù ma
Are you going? (neutral) — one 吗, clean and simple.
3. Fronting the verb like an English auxiliary. Keep the subject first — there's no "Do you…" or "Have you…" flip.
❌ 有你时间吗？
Incorrect — don't front the verb English-style; subject first: 你有时间吗?
✅ 你有时间吗？
nǐ yǒu shíjiān ma
Do you have time? (informal) — subject 你 stays in front.
4. Answering a non-是 question with 是. Echo the actual verb, not a reflex "yes."
❌ ——你会开车吗？——是。
Unnatural — you don't answer 会-questions with 是; echo the verb: 会.
✅ ——你会开车吗？——会。
— nǐ huì kāichē ma — huì
'Can you drive?' 'Yes (I can).' (informal) — repeat 会 to affirm.
Key Takeaways
- To form a yes/no question, take a complete statement, change nothing, and add toneless 吗 at the end.
- 吗 casts a yes/no net over a whole proposition — so it can never combine with a question word (open question) or with A-not-A (already a full question).
- You can poll a negative statement too: 你不去吗? / 你还没…吗? = "aren't you…? / haven't you…?"
- Answer by echoing the verb (会 / 不会, 有 / 没有); Chinese has no standalone word for "yes."
- For 吗 as a member of the sentence-final particle family, see the particle page.
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Start learning Chinese→Related Topics
- Asking Questions: Same Word Order as a StatementHSK 1 — The one rule that governs every Chinese question: keep the statement's word order. No inversion, no 'do/does/did' — you just add a question particle or drop a question word into its normal slot. 你是学生 → 你是学生吗?
- A-not-A Questions (是不是, 去不去)HSK 1 — A second neutral way to ask yes/no: juxtapose the positive and negative of the verb or adjective — 去不去, 好不好, 是不是. The middle 不 is toneless, 有 uses 没 (有没有), and you never add 吗.
- Question Words Stay In Place (In Situ)HSK 1 — The single most important rule for Chinese wh-questions: the question word sits exactly where the answer will sit. No fronting, no do-support, no reordering — 你去哪儿？ not ❌哪儿你去？ And because the question word already asks, you never add 吗.