Timeline for Generally speaking, is it not possible to indicate 'was' or 'were' on '是‘？
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
10 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jun 17, 2020 at 9:50 | history | edited | CommunityBot |
Commonmark migration
|
|
| Dec 30, 2015 at 21:20 | comment | added | Nate Anderson | +1 Re-use of "Swift as an eagle" . And the deep-dive into a confirmation of how "是" answer to a negative-question “You don't ____, right?", can mean, "Right, I don't". Finally, Yingzi should've said "不是“ -- (the most important point!), as @user1032613 confirms. Is this also possible? (甲：你抽烟吧? 乙：不抽。) | |
| Jan 15, 2015 at 4:24 | comment | added | Ming | Fantastic, and great answer by the way! | |
| Jan 14, 2015 at 7:47 | comment | added | Wang Dingwei | @Ming Question tags are of limited use in English and it's even more so in Chinese. So no, you don't hear "你不抽烟，是不是？" as often as the other two. Actually you may never hear it. The Chinese usually ask 你不抽烟吧 and get an answer of 抽 or 不抽. | |
| Jan 14, 2015 at 6:17 | comment | added | Ming | +1, I've always wondered if Chinese did a positive confirmation of a negative statement, like Japanese did. Since it's less common to hear it, I always assumed Chinese sidestepped the issue by simply responding with 我不抽 ... also ... is it common to hear 你不抽烟，是不是？ rather than 你抽不抽烟？ or something like 你会抽烟吗？ | |
| Dec 8, 2014 at 15:01 | comment | added | user1032613 | This is the correct answer. Same as my answer: Yingzi misspoke. | |
| Dec 6, 2014 at 4:22 | comment | added | Wang Dingwei |
No. In the original question 你不是...? is equal to Aren't you...?. "是不是" is equal to "correct or incorrect" rather than "Are you or aren't you".
|
|
| Dec 6, 2014 at 4:00 | comment | added | Pedroski | You think '不是'in '英子，你不是在一家公司工作吗？' is really '是不是‘？？ '是不是 = are you or aren't you‘'不是 = aren't you’ An English speaker will never say 'Yes, I'm not' or 'Yes, I don't' even though it is impeccable logic. That's what the Chinese have: impeccable logic. （Except maybe my girlfriend, but don't tell her I said that!) | |
| Dec 6, 2014 at 3:59 | history | edited | Wang Dingwei | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
deleted 1 character in body
|
| Dec 6, 2014 at 2:43 | history | answered | Wang Dingwei | CC BY-SA 3.0 |