Chinese Grammar: The particle (and interjection) 呢.

The Chinese love to pepper their speech with interjections and particles. Some are extremely common and useful to know! 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: 呢 (ne).

First, 呢.

Bounce back questions with 呢

The main use for 呢 is to bounce back questions at someone.

In this case, its use is very similar to the “and you?” in English, when you’re directly returning the question to someone. More generally, 呢 is also very close to "how about" or "what about" in English. You'll see, it's a handy little bugger.

Structure

Statement/Topic + 呢
Just hang it at the end.

Examples

我 去 吃饭。你 呢？
I’m going to eat. How about you?

你 爸爸 好 吗？你 妈妈 呢？
How’s your dad? And your mom?

我 呢？
What about me?

Convenient, no?

Now that you have 呢 down pat, let’s move on to 吧 and its mysterious power.