The interrogative sentence

We already know that the structure of the chinese sentence is SVO (subject-verb-object) and, unlike other languages, interrogative sentences are formed in the same way. There are three main ways to form a question.

THE INTERROGATIVE PARTICLE 吗

As already stated in the lesson A bit of basic Chinese, this particle is placed at the end of a sentence to form a question. This is because in ancient Chinese, since there was no question mark, it was necessary to have something that would differ the affermative sentence from the interrogative one.

Let’s take the following sentence as an example:

我是中国人
wǒ shì zhōngguó rén
[I to-be China person]
I am Chinese

In order to turn this sentence into a question we just need to add 吗 (ma) at the end and of course substitute the personal pronoun 我 (I) with 你 (you). This structure requires yes/no answers.

你是中国人吗？
nǐ shì zhōngguó rén ma
[you to-be China person IN.P]
Are you Chinese?

REPETITION OF THE VERB

Another possible way is to repeat the verb, forming the affermative-negative question. The negative sentence is formed by putting the character 不 (bù) before the verb. So, if we take once again the previous sentence, we will have:

你是不是中国人？
nǐ shì bú* shì zhōngguó rén?
[you to-b not to-be China person]
Are you Chinese?

*The character 不, when followed by another 4th tone, is pronounced as a 2nd tone.

In case of a two-characters verb, the repetition can be made by repeating the whole two-character verb twice, or just by putting 不 after the first character in the affermative part. Let’s make an example with the verb 喜欢 (xǐhuān - to like):

你喜欢不喜欢看书？
nǐ xǐhuān bù xǐhuān kànshū?
[you to-like not to-like to-watch-book]
Do you like reading?

你喜不喜欢看书？
nǐ xǐ bù xǐhuān kànshū?
[you to-like not to-like to-watch-book]
Do you like reading?

INTERROGATIVE SUBSTITUTIONS

Sometimes it’s not possibile to form a question with just the simple particle 吗. Thus, we can use the “interrogative substitutions”, which are called like this because they substitute the part of the affermative sentence that we don’t know and for which the question has been asked. Let’s clarify this point with the following example.

AFFERMATIVE SENTENCE

我是 晓安
wǒ shì xiǎo ān
[I to-be Xiao An]
I am Xiao An

If this is the answer we would like to receive and, thus, we want to ask Xiao An “Who are you?”, the part of the affermative sentence that we don’t know when we ask the question is the name Xiao An. Hence, the interrogative sentence will be made by using the interrogative substitution “who” to replace the name Xiao An and of course by replacing the pronoun “I” with “you”.

INTERROGATIVE SENTENCE

你是谁？
nǐ shì shéi
[you to-be who]
Who are you?

Here is a list of the main interrogative substitutions.

谁 (shéi) Who
你是谁？
nǐ shì shéi
[you to-be who]
Who are you?

什么 (shénme) What
你看什么书？
nǐ kàn shénme shū?
[you to-watch what book]
What kind of book are you reading?

什么时候 (shénme shíhòu) When
你什么时候去？
nǐ shénme shíhòu qù?
[you when to-go]
When are you going?

为什么 (wèishéme) Why
你为什么哭？
nǐ wèishéme kū?
[you why to-cry]
Why are you crying?

怎么 (zěnme) How come, How
你的名字怎么写？
nǐ de míngzì zěnme xiě?
[you ST name how to-write]
How do you write your name?

哪 (nǎ) Which
你喜欢哪本书？
nǐ xǐhuān nǎ běn shū?
[you to-like which QU book]
Which book do you like?

哪里/哪儿 (nǎlǐ/nǎ’er) Where
你去哪儿？
nǐ qù nǎ’er?
[you to-go where]
Where do you go?

几 (jǐ) How many – for numbers not greater than ten
你的房子有几个房间？
nǐ de fángzi yǒu jǐ gè fángjiān?
[you ST house to-have how many QU room]
How many rooms does your house have?

多少 (duōshǎo) How many, how much
这家图书馆有多少本书？
zhè jiā túshū guǎn yǒu duōshǎo běn shū?
[this QU library to-have how many QU book]
How many books does this library have?

多 (duō) How (to what extent)
你多高？
nǐ duō gāo?
[you how tall]
How tall are you?

If you have any questions regarding this lession, just comment below.

Cover background picture by Yang Shuo (unsplash.com)