Cultural differences between Canada and China -Yes and No

Yes and No answer

By Suzanne Zhu, Dec 2010

You may find that Canadians communicate in a more straight-forward manner. They are much more direct. These cultural differences partly result from the language difference itself. For example, in English, for simple questions, such as, are you busy? Do you come? Will you go?  You can use a “yes“ or “no“ to answer. These are universal answers to all kinds of simple questions. But in Chinese, there is no equivalent to yes or no.  Instead of answering yes or no to the above questions, you repeat the verbs or the adjectives in the question. So in Chinese the answers would sound like, busy (yes) /not busy (no), come / not come, go / not go. The answer varies according to the words used in the questions.

English                                                                               Chinese

Are you busy? Yes, or No.                                            Nî máng ma? Máng, or bù máng

Do you come? Yes, or No                                             Nî lái ma?  Lái, or bù lái.

Will you go?  Yes, or No                                                 Nî qù ma? Qù or bú qù.

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