Asking Questions in Chinese: Easier Than It Appears

If you're wondering how to pose a question in Chinese, you're not the first to stop and ponder whether or not you have all the words in the right order! Actually, you'll find that the sentence structure used for asking questions in Chinese is much more intuitive than it is in English. In English, you have to restructure a statement by taking the words and reordering them in order to ask a question, but not so in Chinese.

Asking Questions

In English, if you begin with the question, "What is his name?" You must give your answer as "His name is _______." From this example, you can see how you are forced to reorder the question in order to be able to answer the question.

In Chinese, however, you keep the same general sentence structure, but just replace the blank with the question word. Therefore, "What is his name?" becomes "His name is what?" making it much easier to answer the question. Now, to answer the question, simply repeat exactly what has been said so far, but replace "what" with the actual name of the person.

Let's Practice Creating Some Questions

1. What color is it?

2. How many people are coming?

3. What are you doing?

Now, let's take a look at what these questions would look like using Chinese sentence structure. How did you do at rearranging the above sentences? (The answers to these questions given as statements help you to see why the question is asked in a certain order).

The Answers

1. This is what color? (Sentence: This is blue)

2. How many people are coming? (Sentence: Ten people are coming)

3. You are doing what? (Sentence: I am taking a walk)

Now it's time to see how you did rearranging these questions. Did you keep the answers in mind as you were reordering them? If you did, then you'll probably be right on when it comes the right word order in Chinese.

How did you do with your questions? If you attained 100% that's amazing! Yet, for most of us, 100% will come with just a little more practice. Try it now by taking just a moment to write out three more questions in English and then attempt rearranging them in Chinese. To see if you're correct, simply write out the answer and then compare it with the question to ensure that you have the same word order. Once you've done that, you can be sure it's correct!

For further detail, take a look at my Chinese blog where you can download a free guide to this incredible language.

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