Chinese is very different from English and other IndoEuropean languages. First, while English questions often have ‘inverted’ word order from statements, Chinese questions have the same word order as statements. The particle ‘吗 (ma)’ can be added to any statement and convert it into a yes-no question. There is also a special type of question called the A-not-A question [9], which is formed with the main verb followed by negation ‘不 (bu)’ or ‘没 (mei)’ and the reduplicated verb. Listed below are examples of common types of questions in Mandarin Chinese:
Statement: 他 想 去.
he want go
“He wants to go.”
Yes-no question: 他 想 去 吗?
he want go ma
“Does he want to go?”
Echo question: 他 想 去?
he want go
“He wants to go?”
A-not-A question: 他 想 不 想 去?
He want not want go
“Does he want to go or not?”
Wh-question: 他 为什么 想 去?
he why want go
“Why does he want to go?”