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Beginner Mandarin Chinese: "Supposition 吧 (Ba)" with eChineseLearning

3,571 views · Published 9 June 2018 · 7:28 · Indexed 22 September 2026

Channel: eChineseLearning · 2018 · Education

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Today, Teacher Ellie examines the particle  "吧 (ba)". The particle 吧 (ba) has no equivalent in English grammar. For this reason, it is a difficult grammatical point for many Chinese learners. In addition, the particle  "吧 (ba)" also changes the structure of the sentence.

When you use 吧 (ba), you have to remember to put the subject of the sentence before the verb. Since this structure is not found in English, many will get confused by this.
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Ellie introduces two important sentence structures in this lesson:

subject + 是 (shì) + Object + 吧 (ba)

By adding 吧 (ba) at the end of the sentence, the sentence becomes a question.

Nǐ shì Vivian ba?
你是 Vivian 吧?
You are Vivian, aren't you?

是 (shì) = is, am or are

If you're making a supposition, you just need to add 吧 (ba) at the end of the declarative sentence. Then, it becomes a tag question.
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The second structure you can learn today is:

Subject + 会 (huì) + verb + object + 吧 (ba)

会 (huì) = can, or 'to be able to' in terms of having a skill or ability

The equivalent in English is "tag question".
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