呢 ne VS 吗 ma
YantaiGuy
May 27, 2007 at 04:56 PM posted in General DiscussionI've been living here in Yantai for almost 6 months now, andmy wife, who is Chinese but speaks pretty good english, hasn't been able to explain the difference between 呢 and 吗 apart from to not say "ni ma" because it's rude.
Could someone give me a more academic explanation, or a working definition to help me understand this strange little character?
amber
May 28, 2007 at 04:05 AM
Good answers everyone,
Just to add a little more on the 吗 (ma) and 呢 (ne) for your reading pleasure:
吗 (ma) is the marker of a question. Therefore, in most cases, if a sentence already includes a question word such as 谁 (shéi), 什么 (shénme), you cannot add a 吗 (ma) to the end, i.e.
wrong: 他是谁吗？ (Tā shì shéi ma?)
wrong: 你去不去吗？ (Nǐ qù bù qù ma?)
However, you could use 呢 (ne) in the above sentences, i.e.:
他是谁呢？ (Tā shì shéi ne?)
你去不去呢？ (Nǐ qù bù qù ne?)
The 呢 (ne) here adds a certain feeling to the sentence, kind of like in English "Who is she then?", and "Are you going then?" The above examples dont require the 呢 (ne) grammatically--it just makes them softer in tone.
呢 (ne) is also used as a 语气词 (yǔqìcí) (mood particle) in other contexts, for example:
我正在看书呢。(Wǒ zhèngzài kànshū ne.)
他比姚明还高呢。(Tā bǐ Yáo Míng hái gāo ne.)
Hope those examples help. Anyone have any more?
franch
May 27, 2007 at 09:00 PM
I would add (if I'm not redundant on Bazza) that it shifts the object of a query, when the subject is the query itself, as in 你妈妈好吗? 你爸爸呢? (a far reaching example, sure). I'd say it is often the equivalent of "how about...".
Piece by piece, I hope a comprehensive account may be patched up :)
bazza
May 27, 2007 at 05:57 PM
According to the ABC dictionary, 呢 is used for "marking questions about subject already mentioned".
YantaiGuy
May 28, 2007 at 01:39 PM谢谢大家啦~!