Conversational Vietnamese Quiz: Yes No Question Patterns

What this quiz covers

This quiz focuses on Yes No Question Patterns, giving you a quick way to practice the rules, question types, and explanations that matter most for Conversational Vietnamese.

How to use this quiz

Try each quiz question before looking at the correct answer. Use the explanations to review missed ideas, then come back to similar questions until the pattern feels familiar.

Question 1

1. All three are grammatically acceptable, but they differ in nuance: Q1 asks about completion with temporal expectation (has it happened yet?), Q2 asks neutrally whether the action occurred, and Q3 seeks confirmation from a listener presumed to already know the answer. (correct answer)
2. Q1 is incorrect because "đã" (past marker) and "chưa" (completion question) cannot co-occur in Vietnamese under any circumstances; Q2 and Q3 are both grammatically correct and carry identical meanings since both end with a question particle.
3. Q2 is the only fully correct form; Q1 is awkward because "chưa" signals only future expectation rather than past completion, and Q3 is ungrammatical because "phải không" requires a subject to be repeated immediately before it.
4. Q3 is incorrect because "phải không" can only follow adjective predicates and is ungrammatical after verb phrases like "về nhà"; Q1 and Q2 are both correct and carry the same meaning since "đã" and "có" serve equivalent grammatical roles.

Question 2

1. Minh uses the "có...không" pattern; a grammatically consistent affirmative response would be "Được, chị có mua," because "được" is the standard word for affirming successful completion of an action in Vietnamese yes/no exchanges.
2. Minh uses the "...không" tag pattern; a grammatically consistent affirmative response would be "Phải, chị mua rồi," because "phải" is the standard affirmative reply to all "không"-final questions in Vietnamese.
3. Minh uses the "có...không" pattern; a grammatically consistent affirmative response would be "Rồi, chị mua rồi," because "rồi" is the only correct affirmative for "có...không" questions about purchasing actions.
4. Minh uses the "có...không" pattern; a grammatically consistent affirmative response would be "Có, chị có mua" or simply "Có," confirming the action with the same "có" marker used in the question. (correct answer)

Question 3

1. Both sentences are grammatically acceptable yes/no questions, but Sentence 1 with "có...không" is more explicitly marked and slightly more formal, while Sentence 2 with just "không" is more colloquial and direct, and both expect the same type of yes/no answer. (correct answer)
2. Sentence 1 is grammatically correct, but Sentence 2 is ungrammatical because omitting "có" before the verb in a yes/no question always produces an incomplete and unacceptable sentence structure in Vietnamese.
3. Sentence 2 is preferred in formal Vietnamese, while Sentence 1 with "có" is only used in spoken, informal registers; using "có...không" in writing is considered a grammatical error by most Vietnamese grammar authorities.
4. The two sentences have opposite pragmatic meanings: Sentence 1 asks whether the action will happen, while Sentence 2 asks whether the action did NOT happen, because "không" without "có" functions as a negation marker rather than a question particle.

Question 4

1. "Chị có khỏe không?" — uses "có...không" framing around the adjective "khỏe," which is a standard and correct yes/no question structure in Vietnamese.
2. "Anh ăn cơm chưa?" — uses "chưa" as a sentence-final particle to ask whether an action has been completed yet, which is a standard yes/no question pattern in Vietnamese.
3. "Cô không đi làm có không?" — places "không" before the verb phrase and then adds "có không" at the end, creating a redundant and structurally ungrammatical yes/no question frame. (correct answer)
4. "Bạn có phải là người Việt Nam không?" — uses "có phải là...không" to question identity or classification, which is a standard and correct yes/no question structure in Vietnamese.

Question 5

1. The conclusion is incorrect because "à" with rising intonation typically signals that the speaker already suspects the answer is yes and is seeking light confirmation, not neutral open-ended information. (correct answer)
2. The conclusion is correct because any yes/no question in Vietnamese with rising intonation at the end is by definition a neutral information-seeking question, regardless of which particle is used.
3. The conclusion is incorrect because "à" exclusively marks rhetorical questions in Vietnamese, meaning the speaker does not expect any response from the listener at all.
4. The conclusion is correct because "à" and "không" are fully interchangeable particles in Vietnamese yes/no questions, so rising intonation alone determines the pragmatic meaning of the sentence.

Question 6

1. Person A uses the "...chưa?" pattern because it is more polite than "có...không" in Vietnamese, and politeness requires using "chưa" whenever speaking to someone older or of higher social status.
2. Person A uses the "...chưa?" pattern because the context implies an expectation of progress over time — after two years, can he speak yet? "Chưa" asks about whether a state or ability has been reached by now, which fits the temporal context better than the neutral "có...không" frame. (correct answer)
3. Person A uses the "...chưa?" pattern because "có...không" cannot be used with the verb "nói được" since "được" is a resultative complement, and Vietnamese grammar prohibits "có" from preceding verb-complement combinations.
4. Person A uses the "...chưa?" pattern because it is the only yes/no question form that can appear in spoken conversation; "có...không" is restricted to written Vietnamese and formal examinations.

Question 7

1. "Chị có khỏe không?" spoken with a slight rise at the end — because, according to this claim, "không" as a question particle always requires strictly flat intonation and any rising contour renders the sentence ungrammatical, which is not actually true in Vietnamese.
2. "Anh đi làm rồi à?" spoken with a sharply falling intonation — because "à" normally co-occurs with a gentle rising contour to signal mild surprise or confirmation-seeking, while a sharp fall makes the utterance sound like a declarative statement rather than a question. (correct answer)
3. "Em ăn cơm chưa?" spoken with a rising intonation on the final syllable — because, according to this claim, any shift in pitch on "chưa" categorically converts it from a question particle into the negative answer 'not yet,' which overstates how tonal and intonational cues interact in natural speech.
4. "Bạn có phải là sinh viên không?" spoken with a rising intonation — because, according to this claim, the "có phải...không" construction is exclusively rhetorical and rising intonation wrongly signals genuine information-seeking, which mischaracterizes this pattern as non-genuine.

Question 8

1. "Có phải anh là sinh viên không?" — This form adds "có phải...không" as a framing structure, making the yes/no expectation more explicitly marked at both ends of the sentence. (correct answer)
2. "Anh có là sinh viên không?" — This form inserts "có" before the copula "là," which mirrors the action-verb yes/no pattern but is considered awkward with "là" and is not the alternative the teacher would recommend.
3. "Phải không anh là sinh viên?" — This form moves "phải không" to the front of the sentence, but this placement is non-standard; "phải không" functions as a sentence-final tag, not a sentence-initial marker.
4. "Anh là sinh viên à?" — This form replaces the particle "không" with "à," which carries a softer confirmation-seeking tone rather than open inquiry, and does not place any new element at the beginning of the sentence.

Question 9

1. Use "...không?" at the end of the sentence; the expected affirmative response is "Có" (meaning 'yes'), though this simple tag form does not inherently signal that the action was expected to be completed by now.
2. Use "có...không?" framing around the verb; the expected affirmative response is "Có" (meaning 'yes'), confirming the action occurred — but this pattern does not encode the temporal expectation of completion by a specific point in time.
3. Use "...chưa?" at the end of the sentence; the expected affirmative response is "Rồi" (meaning 'already done'), confirming the action is complete, while the negative response would be "Chưa" (not yet). (correct answer)
4. Use "...à?" at the end of the sentence; the expected affirmative response is "Ừ, rồi" (meaning 'yeah, already'), which is the only grammatically correct way to confirm completed actions in Vietnamese yes/no exchanges.

Question 10

1. The sentence is awkward because yes/no questions about identity and profession must always use "chưa" instead of "không" as the sentence-final particle, since a person's profession is subject to change over time and implies an ongoing process.
2. The sentence is awkward because "cô ấy" is a third-person pronoun, and the "có...không" question frame can only be used with first- and second-person subjects — a fabricated constraint not found in actual Vietnamese grammar.
3. The sentence is awkward because "có" must always immediately precede a dynamic verb of motion or action; placing it before the copula "là" violates a strict rule that bars "có" from appearing before any stative or linking element.
4. The "có...không" frame is most natural with action verbs and adjectives, but with the copula "là," the preferred construction is "Có phải cô ấy là giáo viên không?" or "Cô ấy là giáo viên phải không?" because "là" does not behave like an action verb and calls for a different framing. (correct answer)