Saying yes and no 怎么說(shuō)是和不是
"I heard that 'yes' and 'no' have different intonations. Could you please help me? I want to learn how to pronounce each intonation and their meanings."
Samantha See, Beijing
Yes means yes? No! Our listener Samantha correctly says these small words can be pronounced differently. How you say them, or your intonation, can give them different meanings.
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Generally, yes is used as a positive response or to positively support a statement. No has the opposite meaning.
Join Rob and Li for further explanations and see if you can work out what is implied when we put yes or no on the end of a question, such as:
You'll have that report finished by Friday, yes?
If you have a question about the English language you can send it to the team at questions.chinaelt@bbc.co.uk. We might make a programme about it!
