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- "Aren't you Canadian?"
"Aren't you Canadian?"
Translation:你不是加拿大人吗?
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I'm not a native speaker of Chinese, but I have taken a Chinese class from 6th grade all the way through high school, and 是不是 feels more natural than “不是”“吗”. 是不是 is asking for confirmation of something, whereas "不是“”吗“ is basically putting a question mark onto the end of the sentence "You aren't Canadian."
"Aren't you Canadian?" expects a "yes" reply analogous to "Nonne..." questions in Latin. An equivalent question in tone would be "you are Canadian, aren't you?" The opposite is "you aren't Canadian, are you?" which expects a "no" reply analogous to "Num..." questions in Latin. My question is: in Chinese, does the phrase expect a "yes" or "no" reply (or neither) as this determines which English phrase to use.
"Aren't you Canadian" means "I'm checking that my assumption that you're Canadian is correct ." The corresponding English for "ni3 bu2shi4 jia1na2da4ren2 ma" would be "You aren't Canadian, are you?" ("I'm checking that my assumption that you aren't Canadian is correct" or, depending on tone of voice, "On the outside chance that you're Canadian, I'm asking (e.g. because I'm Canadian, too or some other reason that would make you being Canadian particularly interesting to me)).