"你明白吗？"

Translation: Do you understand?

[WaaDoku]

Can anyone here explain the etymology of 明白？ "bright white"? from "to be enlightened" maybe?

[circularsquare]

Pretty much. It's "clear and bright", so your guess was very good.

[Naasei]

我不明白你的意思。

[jad498154]

明=bright

白=clear

明白 = bright+clear = enlightened = understand

[jad498154]

你明白吗？:p

[YuJin382387]

Pretty funny because that in Korean means "clear(ly presented)" not "to understand." Amazing!

[CX948]

明白 can also mean clear, unequivocal or coherent, according to Train Chinese.

[Andrew-Lin]

你明白嗎？
The Taiwanese pronunciation is "nǐ míngbái ma" and "ma" actually sounds like "mā" here.
If you are interested, there are many words the last syllable of which is pronounced in "light tone" in mainland China (colloquial) but the original tone in Taiwan.

[ymaarrawi]

Is there a difference between 你明白吗 and 你明白了吗？

[kmhowitt]

The 了 makes it past tense. So "do you understand?" VS "did you understand?"

[BarAdal3]

It doesn't necessarily have to have happened in the past to add 了. It just indicates a completed action, so you might "have understood", but that could be right now or a few minutes ago.
There is no past tense in Mandarin.

[NataliiaVesikko]

Please explain, what's the difference between 明白 and 懂？

[BarAdal3]

明白 is to understand a situation while 懂 is (hearing and) understanding the words a person says. At least in theory, native speakers may use them interchangeably

[MitchBales1]

I was wondering the same thing, thanks for clarifying!

[PeterCross7]

At least one source I've seen indicates that 不明白 and 不懂 are interchangeable.

"不懂 (bù dǒng) may also be swapped out with 不明白 (bù míngbai)."
Source: https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Potential_complement_%22-bu_dong%22_for_not_understanding

[NKaneti]

So whats the difference between "zhi dao" and "ming bai"? As far as i knew zhi dao meant understand?

[CX948]

知道 means "to know".

[DamianRice2]

according to the HSK radical chart, bai2 is white...what makes bai2 'understand' here?
https://www.hsk.academy/en/learn/the-chinese-radicals

[BarAdal3]

I think 明白 literally means "(the situation) is clear to me, cause that would make sense; 明 means bright after all, and I think together with 白, they mean bright and clear. "understand" as one word would be 懂, but I remember reading somewhere that it means more like understanding what the person said, the words they used. I imagine 明白, or more specifically “你明白了吗？” being used after a long (or short) explanation of the situation one's in.

[a.rna27]

Can we use "Are you understand" in English ?

[Jan863662]

There is a bug. I chose exactly the right words, identical to the solution and it was nevertheless marked incorrect. It did not offer me the option to report that my answer should have been accepted. Kaput.

[Bluthund]

How were you able to ever finish the exercise?

[NickA.12]

Do you see the LIGHT??!!

[GaryLBulthouse]

"Do you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth" was marked wrong!