Yes/no questions with 吗
Take any statement, add 吗 at the very end, and it becomes a yes/no question. Nothing else moves.
Structure
陈述句 + 吗？
Explanation
Chinese words in this text can be activated to show a dictionary gloss.
Chinese does not invert the word order to ask a question. You build the statement exactly as you would say it — “You are a teacher” — and simply attach at the end: ？ The subject, verb and object stay where they were. is neutral in tone; the voice does not have to rise. Answers usually echo the verb rather than using a word for “yes”: ？—— “Yes (I do)” or “No”. Two limits matter. cannot appear in a question that already contains a question word such as or , because that question is already a question. And it cannot be combined with the A-not-A form: you say either ？ or ？, never both together. In everyday speech is often replaced by A-not-A, which sounds slightly more direct and inviting.
Correct
Say each one out loud before moving on. The audio is a reference pronunciation, not a model to imitate exactly — match the tone contour, not the voice.
你是老师吗？你是老師嗎？
Nǐ (third tone, dipping) shì (fourth tone, falling) lǎoshī (third tone, dipping) ma? (neutral tone)···
Are you a teacher?
你今天忙吗？你今天忙嗎？
Nǐ (third tone, dipping) jīntiān (first tone, high and level) máng (second tone, rising) ma? (neutral tone)···
Are you busy today?
你喝茶吗？——我不喝，谢谢。你喝茶嗎？——我不喝，謝謝。
Nǐ (third tone, dipping) hē (first tone, high and level) chá (second tone, rising) ma? (neutral tone) — (neutral tone) Wǒ (third tone, dipping) bù (fourth tone, falling) hē, (first tone, high and level) xièxie. (fourth tone, falling)···
Would you like some tea? — No thanks.
Incorrect — Common mistakes
These sentences are wrong. They are printed here on purpose, each one paired with the repair and the reason, because the error you can recognise is the error you stop making.
Not quite
Incorrect sentence: 你吗是老师？
Correct
Correct sentence: 你是老师吗？
Why: 吗 belongs at the very end of the sentence — it can never sit next to the subject.
Not quite
Incorrect sentence: 你喝什么吗？
Correct
Correct sentence: 你喝什么？
Why: 什么 already turns the sentence into a question, so 吗 is redundant and ungrammatical here.
Not quite
Incorrect sentence: 你是不是老师吗？
Correct
Correct sentence: 你是不是老师？
Why: The A-not-A form (是不是) and 吗 are two ways of asking the same question. Pick one.
Compared with
Most errors with this pattern are not errors about this pattern — they are a neighbouring pattern arriving at the wrong moment. Read these side by side.
吗 asks for a yes or a no; a question word asks for information. The two systems do not stack. If the sentence already contains 什么, 谁, 哪儿, 几 or 多少, leave 吗 off: 你去哪儿？ not 你去哪儿吗？. Conversely, a sentence with no question word needs 吗 to become a question at all.
Question words: 什么, 谁, 哪儿, 几, 多少 →Mini quiz
Question 1 / 3Total score: 0
Arrange the words to ask “Are you Chinese?”
Build the sentence