Chinese Grammar: The particle and interjection 吧.

The Chinese love to pepper their speech with interjections and particles. Some are extremely common and useful to know! Like the lesson on 呢 you've seen previously. You'll get the hang of them as you interact with native speakers, but here's a little push.

We're going to start with a very common particle today: 吧 (ba).

The power of 吧

There's this notion in Chinese that one shouldn't be too direct or upfront, to avoid placing the other in an uncomfortable situation, where they might risk losing face.

An easy way to avoid that? Use 吧.

This convenient particle is placed at the end of sentences, to either indicate what you're saying is a suggestion and by no means an order, or simply to soften your speech, or to concede.

We owe you a lucky cat if you don't start hearing 吧 everywhere in Chinese the moment you learn it.

Structure for suggesting

Command + 吧

This use of吧 is very similar to how in English we would use "let's". It just makes your sentence sound more like a suggestion.

Examples

我们 走 吧。
Let’s go for a walk.

给 我 两 个 吧。Give me two (please).

走 吧。
Let’s go.

你 去 吧。
You go.

我们 去 旅游 吧。
Let's travel!

天 太 晚 了，我们 明天 再 去 跑步 吧。
It's too late now, let's go running tomorrow.

咱们 去 吃饭 吧。
Let’s go eat!

Structure for Softening speech

The particle 吧 is also used to soften the feel of a sentence. This is particularly useful when you need to make your sentence more polite, gentler or less forceful.

Statement + 吧

Examples

快 点 吧。
Hurry up.

太 贵 了 吧，我 不 买 了。
It’s too expensive, I’m not buying that.

算了 吧。
Forget it.

Structure for conceding

吧 can also be used to show you're accepting to do something or agreeing to something that you're not particularly happy about.

Statement + 吧

Examples

行 吧，那 就 一起 去。
Alright, let's go there together.

好 吧，现在 去 吃饭。
Ok, let's go eat now. (You would’ve liked to finish what you were doing first but ok, you’ll go eat).

Lastly, in a question, adding 吧 usually shows that you're expecting a positive answer.

你 没 事 吧？
Are you okay?

(expected answer) 没事儿。
I'm okay.