"Do you know where the Yangtze is?"
Translation:你知道长江在哪儿吗?
14 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
@Ryf-Reto - read the English question again. Where is NOT the interrogative in this instance.. Do you know? is the interrogative.. "Where" simply happens to be the subject of "Do you know"?
Now, "Do you know?" is a Yes/No question, and as you (hopefully) know, Yes/No questions need a 吗 or a X 不 X in the sentence construction.
Hope this helps.
713
The English name comes from 揚子 (Yángzǐ) which is the name of an ancient ferry crossing mistaken to mean the entire river. 长江 or 長江 just means "long river" but has other local names within China.
It was really not easy from the beginning, maybe what we discussed with my Chinese teacher can clarify it: - 你知道不知道,长江在哪儿? If you rephrase the sentence this means: do you know or not WHERE the Yangtse is? - 你知道,长江在哪儿吗? So this sentence means the same, the 吗 refers to 你知道 - 你知道,长江在那儿? This has a different menaning: do you know if the Yangtse is THERE