(ma) - question particle (turns a statement into a yes/no question) in Mandarin

Traditional: 嗎

HSK 1

#10 of 5,000 Core 1000

Translation

question particle (turns a statement into a yes/no question)

Word origin

吗 (ma) is the yes/no question particle, written as a phono-semantic compound of 口 (mouth) for the speech meaning plus 马 (mǎ) as the phonetic. The traditional form 嗎 uses the full 馬.

Origin: phono-semantic compound
Root: 口 (mouth, meaning) + 马/馬 (mǎ, phonetic)

Stroke order

吗

Examples

？

How are you?

？

Are you a student?

？

Does he know?

？

Have you had breakfast?

雨yǔ？

Will it rain tomorrow?

吗 (ma) is the yes/no question particle, placed at the end of a sentence.

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Appears in 2 words

Multi-character compounds in the corpus that contain 吗.

好了吗hǎo le mais it ready? are you done?干吗gàn máwhy on earth, what for

Used in

Stories

(7)

Grammar articles

(24)

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Mandarin · Free printables

吗: worksheet, infographic and listicle

Free printable study downloads for the Mandarin word "吗" (question particle (turns a statement into a yes/no question)): a worksheet with the answer key built in, an infographic, and a sentence listicle. Open any one to view, print or save.

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This word is part of lesson 1.