Arabic/YesNoQuestions

Yes/no questions are those questions which can be answered with either a yes or a no in English. For example "Did you go to school today?". That was a yes/no question because someone answering could answer "yes" or "no" and be perfectly understood. An example of a non-yes/no question is: "How was school today?". If your friend asked you that question and you answered "yes" or "no" your friend would think you did not hear him.

So how do yes/no questions work. In English yes/no questions start with an auxiliary verb. There are many of these. In English yes/no questions can start with "have", "do", "did", "will", or other auxiliary verbs.

• "have" ex. Have they come?
• "do" ex. Do they sleep?
• "did" ex. Did they jump?
• "will" ex. will you go away?

In Arabic yes/no questions are much simpler to understand, and to make. Every "yes/no" question usually starts with one of two words/semi-words. So

• هل (hal)
• a hamza (either a "أ " (a) OR ء (a))

Both of these work the same way. Both go at the beginning of a question sentence.

The difference in meaning between هل(hal) and hamza:

1. For making "X=Y" sentences into questions.

• هل (hal) is put at the beginning.

1. For making "X!=Y" sentences into questions.

• ء (a) hamza is put at the beginning.

1. For "X does (something)" sentences

• A hamza is used when talking about the present
  • A hamza would start this sentence: "Are you crying?".
• hal is used when talking in the non present tense.
  • هل (hal) would start this sentence: "Do you cry?".

So how do we make a question. In Arabic a question can easily be made from a statement(a sentence, that is not a command, nor an exclamation, nor a question).

X=Y Sentences

For example, how do we transform the following sentence into a yes/no question.

الولد صغير

al-waladu Sagheer(un)
al-wa-la-du-Sa-gheer
The boy is small.

Simple, just add هل (hal) to the beginning.


هل الولد صغير؟

hal al-waladu Sagheer
hal-al-wa-la-du-Sa-gheer
Is the boy small?

Now don't forget the basic Arabic word for yes is نعم (na`am) and the basic word for no is لا (laa).

X!=Y

أليس كذلك؟

a laisa kadhaalik
a-lai-sa-ka-dhaa-lik
Isn't it like that? OR Right?

X does (something)

هل تعمل؟

hal ta`mal
hal-ta`-mal
Do you work?