Learn Mandarin grammar –Modal particle

Chinese Grammar

In linguistics, modal particles are always uninflected words, and are a type of grammatical particle. Mandarin Chinese depends highly on the use of modal particles. Changing the pitch of the sentence or phrase would make the meaning of the sentence different.

啊: placed at the end of a sentence to express admiration or affirmation, for example:

duō hǎo de dì fɑnɡ a

多好的地方啊！
What a place!

nǐ kě yào xiǎo xīn a

你可要小心啊！
Do be careful!
Or to indicate a question, for example:

nǐ men nǎ tiān qù lǚ xínɡ a

你们哪天去旅行啊？
When are you going to start on your journey?
啊can also be placed in the sentence to pause for a second and draw attention to the following sentences, for example:

nǐ a lǎo zhè yànɡ xià qu kě bù xínɡ
你啊，老这样下去可不行！
Look! You can’t go on like this.
Or placed after a repetitive verb to indicate that it is a very long process:

tā men zǒu a zǒu a yì zhí zǒu dào hé biān
他们走啊，走啊，一直走到河边。
They went on and on till they came to a river.

呀: ah; oh

ya xià xuě le
呀，下雪了！
Oh, it’s snowing!

shuí ya
谁呀？
Who is it?

zhēn shānɡ xīn ya
真伤心呀！
Woe is me!

ò
哦: Oh; ah; I see

ò wǒ dǒnɡ le
哦，我懂了。
Oh! I see. Oh! Now I understand.

ò zhēn de
哦？真的？
Oh, you do?

吗: placed at the end of a sentence to indicate a question

shì ma

是吗？
That so?

ké yǐ ma

可以吗？
Would you?

tánɡ cù yú hǎo chī ma

糖醋鱼好吃吗？
How do you like the sweet and sour fish?

ma
嘛: to indicate it is obvious

zhè yě bù nénɡ ɡuài tā tóu yì huí ma
这也不能怪他，头一回嘛。
He’s not to blame. After all, it was the first time he’d done it.
Or, placed at the end of a sentence to draw attention to the following sentences:

nǐ ma jiù bú yònɡ qīn zì qù le
你嘛，就不用亲自去了。
As for you, I don’t think you have to go in person.