嗎
mamámǎ HSK1

final interrogative particle

吗 嗎 ma frequency
question particle particle
Used at the end of a sentence to turn it into a yes-or-no question or to express doubt or a rhetorical question.

你找到你要的东西吗？

nǐ zhǎo dào nǐ yào de dōng​xi ma?

Did you find what you were looking for?

我能在医院陪着她吗？

wǒ néng zài yī​yuàn péi zhe tā ma?

Can I stay with her in the hospital?

pause particle
Used at the end of a phrase to create a pause, often to signal that the speaker is considering what to say next or to highlight the preceding topic.
吗 嗎 má
what particle
(colloquial) Used as an equivalent to 什么 shén​me in phrases like 干吗 gàn​má

他干吗那么生气？

tā gàn má nà​me shēng qì?

Why's he so angry?

吗 嗎 mǎ
transliteration noun
(bound form) Used in transliterations, such as for morphine 吗啡 mǎ​fēi

Cross-References

Synonym

Referenced by

Same as

Frequency
Character
Written text
453rd most common 473.6 per million
Movie subtitles
26th most common 5408.5 per million appears in 98% of films
Word
Movie subtitles
7428.1 per million appears in 98% of films
Written text
582.9 per million

Details
HSK 2.0
Level 1
HSK 3.0
Level 1
Simplified
吗
Strokes
13
Unicode
U+55CE

Sources
Frequency data
MTSU Chinese text computingSUBTLEX-CHBCC Corpus (BLCU)