| > My native Germanic language has a specific variant of 'yes' which is perfect for when both 'no' and 'yes' alone would be ambiguous. Not sure why not more languages have that. French draws this distinction; ordinary 'yes' is oui; 'yes' contradicting a negative is si instead. Mandarin gives you a variety of options for how to respond. You can use equivalents of 'yes' and 'no', but it's more common to echo the verb in the question. 你喜欢吃辣的吗？("Do you like eating spicy food?") 不喜欢 ("[I] don't like [it].") Here we have no need to worry about whether the question was positive or negative; if I like the food I'll say 喜欢 and if I don't I'll say 不喜欢. It's also possible to say 对 "correct", in which case it does matter how the question was phrased. The specific question here, 你不是学生吗 "Are you not a student?", might be a little odder than usual because the verb 是 is also what's used for a simple "yes". But for "No, I'm not" 不是 is unambiguous, and I have a vague gut feeling that 是啊 would probably be taken as "Yes, I am". And of course you have the option of continuing your response ("yes, I'm a student, I've been enrolled here for two years") if you feel the short answer was too cryptic. |