Basic Grammar: all 87 lessons free
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吗 呢 吧 啊 — The Mood at the End
语气词 — 句尾的语气
Four weightless syllables at the end of the sentence. They change none of the grammar and all of the weather.
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Memory hook
吗 asks · 呢 bounces, hunts, continues · 吧 softens · 啊 warms
Six endings, six weathers
Tap any line and listen past the words — the particle at the end is where the feeling lives.
Tap any line to hear it
Hang the right particle挂对语气词
No pressure — just making it stick.
我们坐这里____！
Wǒmen zuò zhèlǐ ____!
Let's sit here!
我是学生，你____？
Wǒ shì xuéshēng, nǐ ____?
I'm a student — what about you?
我的包裹____？
Wǒ de bāoguǒ ____?
Where's my package?
桌子上的电脑是你的____？
Zhuōzi shàng de diànnǎo shì nǐ de ____?
Is the laptop on the table yours?
What is mum doing right now?
What happened?
Your turn — say it
晚上去喝一杯吧！
Let's go for a drink tonight!
Your turn — say it
好啊！
Sure!
This lesson's characters
The particle family portrait: three characters, one 口 each — because a mood particle is nothing but voice.
suggestion softener
形meaning + sound
口 on the left because 吧 exists only in the voice; 巴 spells the sound, relaxed until the tone falls off. One more place you have met this character: 酒吧, a bar — Chinese borrowed the English word 'bar' and used 吧 to spell it. The particle and the pub share nothing but the sound.
the bouncing, hunting, continuing particle
形meaning + sound
Same recipe: a mouth for the meaning, 尼 ní for the sound. You have heard 尼 working elsewhere — it is the ní of 迪士尼, Disney: a character kept busy spelling foreign sounds. Here it spells the most Chinese sound there is, the little ne that bounces questions and hunts for wallets.
feeling particle
形meaning + sound
The widest-open of the family — 啊 is barely more than the mouth opening. 阿 spells ā; the particle relaxes it to a weightless a that takes on the feeling of whatever came before it: 好啊 is delight, 对啊 is agreement, 当然啊 is of-course.
Take these with you
Everything worth taking away. Tap any line to hear it.
Words 生词
Characters 汉字
Before you go课后回顾
- Steal one particle today: end one suggestion with 吧, and bounce one question back with 你呢.
- When something isn't where you left it, you now own the exact sentence: 我的⋯⋯呢？
- Particles carry no tone of their own — they borrow their colour from the sentence in front of them.