{"id":3016,"date":"2019-10-29T22:11:54","date_gmt":"2019-10-29T22:11:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chinesemoment.com\/chinese-grammar\/how-to-use-the-particles-ma-ma-and-ne-ne-in-chinese-grammar\/"},"modified":"2019-10-29T22:11:54","modified_gmt":"2019-10-29T22:11:54","slug":"how-to-use-the-particles-ma-ma-and-ne-ne-in-chinese-grammar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinesemoment.com\/fr\/how-to-use-the-particles-ma-ma-and-ne-ne-in-chinese-grammar\/","title":{"rendered":"How to use the particles \u5417 (ma) and \u5462 (ne) in Chinese grammar"},"content":{"rendered":"
The particles \u5462 (ne) and \u5417 (ma) are extremely common in Chinese. This article explains the two particles for beginners.<\/p>\n

\u5462 and \u5417 are similar in the following ways:<\/p>\n

Both go at the end of a sentence.
Both of them can form questions.
Both of them are pro<\/em>nounced in neutral tone.
But these two particles have different uses:<\/p>\n

\u5417 is used to turn statements into yes-no questions.
\u5462 is mostly used to turn statements into queries (amo<\/em>ngst other things).
Now let’s look at the two particles in detail.<\/p>\n

\u5417 (ma)<\/p>\n

As mentio<\/em>ned above, \u5417 is a question particle that is used to turn statements into yes-no questions. What exactly does that mean? A yes-no question is also known as a “binary question” or a “polar question”. This simply means that it’s a question that can o<\/em>nly be answered with “yes” or “no”. In other words, it’s not an open question.<\/p>\n

The question particle \u5417 is the easiest way to form this kind of question in Mandarin Chinese. All you do is put it on the end of a plain statement, and the statement becomes a yes-no question. Have a look at some examples:<\/p>\n

\u4f60\u662f\u674e\u5148\u751f\u5417\uff1f
N\u01d0 shì L\u01d0 Xi\u0101nsh\u0113ng ma?
Are you Mr Li?
\u4f60\u4f1a\u4e2d\u6587\u5417\uff1f
N\u01d0 huì Zh\u014dngwén ma?
Do you speak Chinese?
\u8fd9\u91cc\u6709\u6d17\u624b\u95f4\u5417\uff1f
Zhèli y\u01d2u x\u01d0sh\u01d2uji\u0101n ma?
Is there a toilet here?
Those would all be valid sentences without \u5417. They would just be plain statements:<\/p>\n

\u4f60\u662f\u674e\u5148\u751f\u3002
N\u01d0 shì L\u01d0 Xi\u0101nsh\u0113ng.
You are Mr Li.
\u4f60\u4f1a\u4e2d\u6587\u3002
N\u01d0 huì Zh\u014dngwén.
You speak Chinese.
\u8fd9\u91cc\u6709\u6d17\u624b\u95f4\u3002
Zhèli y\u01d2u x\u01d0sh\u01d2uji\u0101n.
There is a toilet here.
Compare the two sets of sentences. You can see that when \u5417 is added on the end, they become yes-no questions. All of those questions can o<\/em>nly be answered with agreement or disagreement. That’s what \u5417 is for.<\/p>\n

In this way, \u5417 is almost like a question mark that you say out loud. It goes on the end of the sentence and indicates that it’s a question. Have a look at some point statements being changed into yes-no questions with \u5417:<\/p>\n

\u8fd9\u662f\u4f60\u7684\u3002
Zhè shì n\u01d0 de.
This is yours.
\u8fd9\u662f\u4f60\u7684\u5417\uff1f
Zhè shì n\u01d0 de ma?
Is this yours?
\u4ed6\u662f\u6cf0\u56fd\u4eba\u3002
T\u0101 shì Tàiguórén.
He’s from Thailand.
\u4ed6\u662f\u6cf0\u56fd\u4eba\u5417\uff1f
T\u0101 shì Tàiguórén ma?
Is he from Thailand?
\u90a3\u662f\u98de\u673a\u3002
Nà shì f\u0113ij\u012b.
That’s a plane.
\u90a3\u662f\u98de\u673a\u5417\uff1f
Nà shì f\u0113ij\u012b ma?
Is that a plane?
Notice how in English you have to re-arrange the word order of the sentence to form these questions. In Chinese, all you have to do is add \u5417 on the end.<\/p>\n

\u5462 (ne)<\/p>\n

The particle \u5462 has more uses than \u5417, but we’ll look at the most im<\/em>portant one here: forming queries, or asking bounce-back questions.<\/p>\n

The most common use for \u5462 is probably to form simple queries. All you do is put \u5462 after the thing you want to query. This is often equivalent to saying “and … ?“, “what a<\/em>bout … ?” or “how a<\/em>bout … ?” in English. Some examples:<\/p>\n

\u4f60\u5462\uff1f
N\u01d0 ne?
And you?
\u6211\u5462\uff1f
W\u01d2 ne?
What a<\/em>bout me?
\u8fd9\u4e9b\u4e1c\u897f\u5462\uff1f
Zhèxi\u0113 d\u014dngxi ne?
What a<\/em>bout these things?
As you can see, it’s very easy to query things in Chinese using \u5462. Just say the thing you’d like to know a<\/em>bout, and put \u5462 right after it. This is very commo<\/em>nly used to ask ‘bounce-back questions’ in Chinese. This is when someone asks you a question, and you return the question to them after answering it. This is commo<\/em>nly done by simply asking “\u4f60\u5462\uff1f”.<\/p>\n

There are a few other uses for \u5462 in Chinese grammar, but we won’t go into detail a<\/em>bout those in this article.<\/p>\n

Comparing \u5417 and \u5462<\/p>\n

As you can see above, these two particles are fairly similar. But what are the im<\/em>portant differences? Let’s have a look at a few here.<\/p>\n

The first difference is that \u5417 is o<\/em>nly for yes-no questions, wheras \u5462 cannot be used in yes-no questions. \u5417 always forms these questions, wheras when \u5462 is used to form queries, they are open-ended.<\/p>\n

The second difference is that \u5462 can combine with question words to emphasize a query. \u5417 can’t be doubled-up with other question words; it marks questions on its own. For example, \u5462 is being used to add a further querying element to these questions:<\/p>\n

\u4f60\u4e3a\u4ec0\u4e48\u4e0d\u53bb\u5462\uff1f
N\u01d0 wèishénme bù qù ne?
Why aren’t you going?
\u4ed6\u6709\u4ec0\u4e48\u4e0d\u559c\u6b22\u5403\u7684\u5462\uff1f
T\u0101 y\u01d2u shénme bù x\u01d0huan ch\u012b de ne?
What is there that he doesn’t like to eat?
Those would both be grammatically valid questions without \u5462, but by adding \u5462 the speaker makes it clear that they don’t just want an answer to the question – they’re questio<\/em>ning the situation or even criticising it. They’ve added a further query to it.<\/p>\n

\u5417, on the other hand, can’t combine directly with other question words in a statement. If there’s already a question word, it fills up the question “slot”, and there’s no more space for \u5417.<\/p>\n

The o<\/em>nly way \u5417 can appear with other question words in the same sentence is if it’s used to ask a yes-no question a<\/em>bout a condition. That sounds complicated, but this example might make it clearer:<\/p>\n

\u4f60\u77e5\u9053\u4ed6\u4e3a\u4ec0\u4e48\u4e0d\u5403\u8089\u5417\uff1f
N\u01d0 zh\u012bdào t\u0101 wèishéme bù ch\u012b ròu ma?
Do you know why he doesn’t eat meat?
\u5417 is appearing with another question wor(\u4e3a\u4ec0\u4e48) in that sentence, but it’s not actually part of that question. There are two questions in the sentence here: an inner question a<\/em>bout why the person doesn’t eat meat, and an outer question a<\/em>bout whether the listener knows the answer to the inner question:<\/p>\n

\u4f60\u77e5\u9053\u5417\uff1f
N\u01d0 zh\u012bdào ma?
Do you know?
\u4ed6\u4e3a\u4ec0\u4e48\u4e0d\u5403\u8089\uff1f
T\u0101 wèishénme bù ch\u012b ròu?
Why doesn’t he eat meat?
\u5417 really o<\/em>nly applies to the outer question, so it doesn’t clash with the question word in the inner one. Other than that kind of situation, \u5417 can’t appear directly together with other question words.
<\/div>\n