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B2 · Grammar reference · ASGMCP9V

Rhetorical questions with "nandao"

Rhetorical questions use the form of a question to emphasize a point, thus do not require an answer. A typical English rhetorical question might be: "you're not saying you actually believe him, are you?" or "just how stupid are you?" In Chinese, 难道 (nándào) is used as a marker to form this kind of question. Since we don't "mark" our rhetorical questions like this in English, this can take some getting used to in Chinese.

Keywords
难道
Used for
Asking questions · Asking rhetorical questions
Classification
Adverbs · HSK4

Examples (7)

难道你真的相信他吗?

难道你是我妈吗?

今天是我的生日,难道你不知道吗?

难道你今天没去上班吗?

你这么冷静,难道不知道发生了什么吗?

你父母这么关心你,难道你一点都感觉不到吗?

他这么帅,又这么有钱,难道你不想嫁给他吗?

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Full explanation at AllSet Learning

Summary, structure, classification, and adapted sentence examples draw from the AllSet Learning Chinese Grammar Wiki under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0; changes were made. This noncommercial reference is based on an October 2023 snapshot.

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