Chinese for the Casual Learner
Answering Yes/No Questions
Chinese does not have a universal Yes/No answer as in English. To answer in the
affirmative, you repeat the verb used in the question. To answer in the negative,
you answer with bú (not) in front of the verb. This means that you need to pay attention to
which verb was used in the question in order to provide the correct
answer. The one critical exception to this rule occurs when the
verb is yǒu (to have) in which case the negative prefix is answer is méi instead of bú. If you are at a loss but know that your answer is negative, you can probably
make yourself understood by simply saying bú, even though it will not be grammatically in many cases.
[When is bu by itself correct?]
The following table shows the yes/no answers for some of the most commonly used
verbs.
Other Possible Answers
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