'Yes' or 'No' | Antimoon Forum

I don't know if this problem has been raised before, but it seems that Chinese people are really confused with 'Yes' and 'No'. Maybe it is due to the difference of sentence structure between English and Chinese. I was not aware of the problem until my teacher told me so.

With questions like "Aren't you working on project A?", I have seen cases in which people say 'No' when what they mean is actually 'Yes'. Then the one who asked the question will continue: "You are not working on project A?" and the reply will be: "No, I'm working on it right now...."

I think when they say 'No', they are giving a negative answer to the whole question itself. So for the second reply, he actually wants to say "I am not 'not working on it'..."

When it comes to 'question tag', the problem appears. "You are not taking a taxi, are you?" "No... Yes..." Just say "Yes" if you take a taxi.

I don't know how to explain it any further, but you'll know what I mean if you speak Chinese. Think about it~

I don't think that's just a Chinese thing - basically you should only ask questions in the positive, eg: 'Are you hungry?'. Then 'yes' obviously means 'I am hungry' and 'no' means 'I am not hungry'.

If you say 'Aren't you hungry', then 'yes' could mean 'yes I'm hungry' or 'yes I'm not hungry'. 'No' can mean 'No I'm not hungry' or 'No I am hungry'. Quite confusing ;)

I have this same problem; and I am a native English-speaker! I think it has something to do with hearning a negative marker in the question.

i don't base the "yes" or "no" on the question, but on my response.

no matter how the question is asked, if i choose to respond affirmatively, i always use a "yes"

"aren't you going to the mall?"
"yes, (i am going)." (not "no, i am going." don't mix a "no" with an action not in the negative in cases like this)

or

"are you going to the mall?"
"yes, (i am going)."

if i choose to respond in the negative, i always use a "no"

"aren't you going to the mall?"
"no, (i'm not going)." (not "yes, i am not going." see the conflict between the "yes" and the "not"?)

or

"are you going to the mall?"
"no, (i'm not going)."

does that make sense? this is how most people respond. i'm not sure if it's grammatically correct but even native english speakers will just confuse themselves if they try to base the response on the way the question is asked.

All the native English-speakers I know respond the questions just as hp20 described. But Chinese do answer question according to the way the questions are asked.

It's hard to avoid asking negative questions. If your kids left their lunch on the table untouched, won't you ask (!) "Aren't you hungry?"

cmhiv back me on this - I'm also a native speaker (although I prefer the term first language speaker) and I think I was conditioned when young to answer negative questions fully to avoid confusion. Eg if I was asked 'don't you want to come?' and said 'no', I'd be asked 'No you don't or no you do?' ;)

Yes, that would be my first response like you, but I do not know the reason behind why I say it this way. Probably because before I started having an interest in languages, I did not pay attention to how I spoke; but now that I have been learning a whole bunch of different languages, my English has suffered from this.

I am a PhD student and I study with quite a few Chinese colleagues and have noticed this trait. I didn't realise it was due to Chinese sentence structure. Thanks for the info

My English teacher taught me the same thing as what hp20 wrote. It saves a lot of trouble :)

It's not only the Chinese who have this trouble. Answering negative questions is difficult for Japanese and Coreans too. In their languages the answer depends on the way the question is asked. For example, if someone asks "Ikanai no?" i.e. "Aren't you going?" in Japanese and you answer "Hai.", "Un.", "Sou.", etc. i.e. "Yes." that means you're not going whereas in English it means that you are.

Of course, you could try avoid asking negative questions and, when asked them, try answering them fully like MunchkinLad suggests but this is not always going to be convenient or even possible. Negative questions are part of the language and you just have to get used to them. When I was young I always thought the way we answer them in English was illogical but I got used to them and it's perfectly natural now.

I think the best advice was given by hp20 forget whether the question is positive or negative and base every thing on your response. Perhaps start by answering the questions fully and gradually drop the superfluous info. Still, sometimes it's best of give a full answer to avoid confusion.

hp20 was right when (s)he wrote "this is how most people respond.", well, almost, it should have been "This is how most people respond in English." If you're asked "Aren't you hungry?" and you respond "Yes." it means "Yes, I'm hungry.", on the other hand, "No" means "No, I'm not hungry." ... not so confusing once you're used to it.

typo I left out punctuation "... given by hp20 forget whether ..." should be "... given by hp20: forget whether ..."

I've never seen Korean spelled with a "C."

Correction to my above post:

I wrote "But Chinese do answer question according to the way the questions are asked. " Indeed, if I'm asked in Chinese "Are you not hungry?"

Different ways of answering it:
1. "ng ah" (no, I'm not hungry.)
2. "ng hai ah" (no, I'm not not hungry.)
3. "hai ah" (yes, I'm not hungry.)
4. "aw ah" (hungry.)
5. "ng aw" (not hunrgry.)

("ng" = "no/not", "hai" = "yes", "aw = hungry", "ah" is just an expression to end a sentence.)

Of course 4 and 5 are the best but people tend to use 1 to 3 more often.

y,

Did you watch the World Cup last year?

From what I read we spell it with a "K" in English because the Japanese imperial colonists didn't want "Corea" before "Japan" in alphabetical lists so they pursuaded Americans to adopt the spelling with a "K".

Have a look at this site http://goldsea.com/Air/Issues/Corea/corea.html