The interrogative expression 好吗 hăoma is it OK? / how about ? is used in making suggestions. 好吗 hăoma is placed at the end of a statement to form a question. For instance:
我 们 去 看 电 影 好 吗?
Shall we go and see a film ? / How about seeing a film?
我们去看电影 wŏmen qù kàn diànyĭng we are going to see a film is a statement. hăoma is it OK? / how about ? is added at end to form a question with the force of a suggestion. The use of hăoma is similar to the use of the sentence particle ba . However, the sentence particle ba has a more assertive tone (equivalent to the first person plural imperative ‘let’s’ in English), while hăoma leaves more of the choice to the listener.
If we replace 好吗 hăoma with the sentence particle ba in the above statement , the imperative connotation is stronger.
我 们 去 看 电 影 吧。
( Come on.) Let’s go and see a film.
The answers for both types of question are either 好 hăo OK or bù xíng no ( not OK) . The negative answer bu xíng no ( not OK) is often followed by a reason. For instance, to give a negative answer to the above suggestion, we could say:
不 行,我 跟 我 男 朋 友 一起 去 看 京剧。
bù xing, wŏ gēn wŏ nán péngyou yìqĭ qù kàn jīngjù
Sorry, I can’t; my boyfriend and I are going to a Peking Opera.
NB Apologies such as sorry are not as common in Chinese as in English.
Translate the following sentences into Chinese (Review of interrogatives following 好吗)
Shall we have some tea in the café after the class?
Could I please use your car for a little while?
Shall we all go (straight) to the cinema from the library?
Let’s all go there (straight) from my place.