"他们是谁？"
Translation:Who are they?
20 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
The word 谁 is already a question word meaning "who?", so it would redundant and unnecessary to add 吗 to the end.
*Usually you need 吗 to change a sentence into a question that does not already contain a question word.... Eg: (你吃了, you've eaten) (你吃了吗，have you eaten?) (你吃了什么，what did you eat?)
吗 is used if you are asking a question which requires a yes/no answer. You cannot answer "Who are they?" with a "yes" or "no."
Ma is just a particle, or a classifier, so we might not use it when talking about talking about people first person. I'm not a pro, but I predict it.
Because shei (who) functions as a question particle because it is obviously a question. Just like if anyone says who, what, where, when, or why in English. It is assumed to be a question.
596
Man, I'm having trouble getting used to the ordering in Chinese, I keep ordering it like English instead of "他们是谁？", or "They are who?"
ingochris
I looked into this and the original pronunciation ie shui2 but many dialects of Mandarin say shei2 (https://www.quora.com/The-Mandarin-word-%E8%B0%81-%E8%AA%B0-seems-to-have-two-different-pronunciations-shei-or-shui-Is-there-a-particular-pronunciation-that-is-correct-or-are-they-used-in-different-contexts)
Related: can I use the particle "ma" in the end? Would it emphasise it as a question or so?
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吗 is for yes-no questions. If you add it in this case, it'd be 他们是谁吗？, meaning "Are they anybody?" or "Are they somebody?" (literal translations). This can be rude because it can sound like they're nobodies.
After I translate the sentenceI put the "who" in front And it becomes a question :)