Japanese Negative Questions and How to Respond

Last time, you learned Japanese wh-questions not related to demonstratives like “誰だれが先生せんせいですか (who is the teacher)？” Now, you can compose both closed and open questions. In this lesson, we would like to focus on how to respond to questions.

How to Respond to Interrogative Sentences

The way to respond to questions in Japanese is similar to ones in English, apart from when you respond to negative questions. In order to understand the difference, let’s learn the theory one by one.

Basic Responses to Affirmative Questions

First of all, let us mention a cultural difference. In Japan’s culture, pronouns such as “you,” “he,” and “she” are rarely used. Instead, we often just omit or substitute people’s names for them. In this lesson, we will use people’s names with translations in which pronouns are used.

Closed Questions with Nouns

There are two patterns. The first is to repeat what you’re asked, which is 大学生だいがくせい in this case. The second is to utilize the demonstrative そう. You can also say “No” with そう like “そうじゃない,” however, we think that using “違ちがう: to differ” is more common.

Closed Questions with Others

There is one pattern. You have to repeat what you’re asked which are 忙いそがしい and 勉べん強きょうする here. You can use そう only when you’re asked with nouns.

Open Questions

When you respond to open questions, you cannot say yes and no. You have to respond to the question words. Note: when you explain reasons, the explanatory のだ（んだ）often appears.

How Negative Questions Work

Negative questions have several functions, which we will explain in other lessons. Here, we would like to focus on the basic ones. Negative questions can be divided into two purposes: the first is simply to ask yes or no, and the second is to ask whether your guess is correct or not.

Conjugation Rule

Question Marker: か

Question Marker: の

The conjugation rule works the same as the one for normal questions. When it comes to casual expressions with か, the form of the negative question is exactly the same as the negative sentence. Pronouncing the last letter with rising intonation, Japanese people usually distinguish them.

Negative Questions to Ask Yes or No

The first function is to simply ask “Yes” or “No.” This is where English speakers often make a mistake. When it comes to responses in this context, “Yes” and “No” work in the opposite way of English. うん and はい indicates negative responses while ううん and いいえ indicates affirmative responses.

Negative Questions to Ask While Guessing

The second function is to ask whether your guess is correct or not. The above questions are said when you think that “this is wrong. (Ex 1)” and “Kim-san is Korean (Ex 2).” In this context, “Yes” and “No” work in a normal way.

Advanced Topic: Volitional Verbs with Negative Questions

When you use volitional verbs such as “食たべる: to eat” and “行いく: to go,” in negative questions, you have to use the quotation marker の. This is because the form: “食たべない (Won’t [you] eat [it])？” can be interpreted as inviting. *You will learn how to invite in detail in future lessons.

Summary

1. When you respond to closed questions with nouns, そう and 違ちがう work well.
2. When you respond to closed questions without nouns, you need to repeat the predicates.
3. Negative questions ask yes or no, or whether your guess is correct.
4. When you respond to yes-or-no negative questions, your answer needs to work in the opposite way to English.

We think the structure of negative questions is not complicated. Only the yes-or-no negative questions matter. Try not to think about the grammatical rules in English. It’s important to learn Japanese as it is. Next, you will tackle the last lesson in this interrogative sentence section. Question words are sometimes used outside of wh-questions. You will learn the usage.