Welcome to Daily Tips on Learning English. Today’s tip is on answering “Yes/No” questions correctly.

In English, “Yes” is always followed by affirmative statements. “No” is always followed by negative statements.

This means you can’t say, “Yes, I haven’t eaten dinner yet.” Or “No, I did my home work.” Chinese allows this, but English does not. There’re different kinds of “Yes/No” questions. Simple “Yes/No” questions such as “Do you speak English?” “Are you hungry?” pose no problem. But negative questions such as “Don’t you speak English?” “Aren’t you hungry?” require the same answers. “Yes, I do.” “No, I don’t.” or “Yes, I am.” “No, I’m not.” Chinese learners of English are often misled by negative questions, and answer, “Yes, I don’t speak English.” Or “Yes, I’m not hungry.” by accident. Another type of “Yes/No” questions is to use a rising intonation with a statement. For example, you ask a Chinese person, “Did you eat dinner?” and he says, “No, I didn’t.” You’re surprised, so you ask, “You didn’t eat dinner?” and he answers, “Yes.” instead of “No”. Don’t use “yes” to mean “是的”. You should say, “That’s correct.” In the example above, “Yes” means “Yes, I ate dinner.” Not “Correct, I didn’t eat dinner. Let’s look at another example. I think that all Chinese people like to eat rice. So, when my Chinese friend tells me that he never eats rice, I was very surprised, and I ask, “You don’t like to eat rice?” and he answers, “Yes.” This is wrong. Because in English, you can not say, “Yes, I don’t like to eat rice.” He should answer, “No.” or “That’s correct.” So remember, “Yes” must be followed by affirmative statements, and “No” must be followed by negative statements.

This has been today’s daily tip on learning English. Tune in tomorrow for another tip.