With negative questions that require a yes or no, there can sometimes be confusion in the correct way to answer. Grammatically, you may assume that a negative question answered in the affirmative should be a negative statement (i.e. “Doesn’t it look good?” – “Yes it doesn’
t.”). A friend of mine teaching in Vietnam was told that this was given as a rule by one of her fellow teachers, as taught in a reference book. Theoretically this may make sense, but in practice this is NOT how negative questions work. In fact, the answer to a negative question will often be very similar to the answer to a positive question. Here’s why:
The Grammar of Answering a Negative Question
Negative questions generally ask for the same information as the positive form. This may sound confusing, so let’s just look at a few examples:
- Does he like chocolate?
- Doesn’t he like chocolate?
In both cases we are answering whether or not he likes chocolate. The answer provides the same information, it is only the form of the question. So, we can answer both these questions the same way.
- Does he like chocolate? Yes, he does. / No, he doesn’t.
- Doesn’t he like chocolate? Yes, he does. / No, he doesn’t.
The rules here can be hazy, and different negative questions may be more confusing or require different answers – but in practice any native speaker would know that you generally answer a negative question the same way you would a positive one. The reason for this is to do with the correct statement for a clear answer for the required information, not to respond to the specific question form.
So if you need to know how to answer a negative question, do not think about changing the grammatical form, simply consider how you would give the correct information. The next step is to consider where these negative questions come from.
Why do we ask negative questions?
Generally, a negative question is used to add emphasis or surprise. This is usually because we wish to suggest a negative response, when the negative answer is already known or suspected. So while the answer may be applied to both a positive and negative question, the context of the person asking the question can dictate which question is asked.
A common example in English would be “Aren’t you going?” or variations of this form. Consider these two examples:
- “I need a lift to town, are you going to the cinema this evening?”
- “It’s late, aren’t you going to the cinema this evening?”
The answer to both these questions might be “No, I’m not going, I have too much work.” – the contexts for the questions are very different. 1. is asked as an open question (we do not know the answer) 2. is asked in the negative form because the speaker has reason to believe the answer will be negative (it is late so going to the cinema is unlikely).
Bear in mind there are many other contexts and considerations that may be made when negative questions come into play. If you have any examples that you don’t feel fit this general introduction please do let me know!
What is the correct way to answer the question,
“I can’t have more?” if the person wants to respond by affirming the negative but wants to answer just with a yes or no? Would it be “yes” to indicate that the person being asked agrees and affirms that the person can’t have more, or would the correct answer be “no”?
No. You can’t
Yes, you can
Hi! So I received a screening questionnaire answerable by Yes or No tick boxes and some of the questions were stated in a negative form. Examples:
1.Has no allergy to food, medicines and no asthma?
2. Has no history of bleeding disorders or currently taking anti-coagulants?
3. Does not manifest any of the following symptoms:
Choices were only check boxes for Yes or No. Which box to tick?
Hi Arianne,
I’m afraid this is another unclear one; technically I would say that answering “Yes” here means that you agree to the negative, i.e. Yes means No allergy/No history of bleeding/Does not manifest symptoms. As the statements ask you to confirm that these are not the case (i.e. is it true or false that you have no allergy). But it’s really not the clearest way for them to ask and it might be worth double-checking.
Phil
Hi Phil, when someone asks a question with “never” like “will u never go there?” If u wanna answer u will never go there, can u say “yes”, as in “yes I will never go there?”
You could answer that way; questions with “never” are negative sentences that basically create the same considerations as negative questions, so it might not be obvious if yes or no is appropriate, and as you’ve suggested will depend on your meaning, which could essentially be either “Yes, that’s right, I never will.” or “No I never will.” (reinforcing the negative).
The correct answers to these will be “Yes (has no allergy) or No (has an allergy)” ans similarly for the others. The reason for this is that the “questions” in this case are statements and not truly questions or negative questions in a true sense. Look at it this way – if you were conversing with someone, you cannot ask a question by simply making the statements to someone else. I can’t meet you and just say, “Has no allergy to food, medicines and no asthma” except there was some prior conversation that will let you know I will be asking some things as questions. If I however say, “does (someone) have allergy to…?” (positive question) or “does (somebody) have no allergy to…?” (negative question), these will be questions in the true sense, rather than just statements.
Hi Camellia, for a tag like that we’d typically echo the statement to confirm it – so “No, you can’t.” would agree with it. The exception would be if we instead want to confirm the statement is correct, “Yes, you’re right.” – but I would suggest the first version is a more direct/clear answer to the question.
I agree with you Phil. However, I think the correct form of the question ought to be “Can’t I have more?” rather than “I can’t have more?” The later, I think, is a statement rather than a question.
Hi Alando, yes you are right that the typical question form would be inverted. The example is a tag question, though, which is an alternative (typically informal) way of asking a question, in the form of a statement.
Someone said to me ” You did not come to school yesterday” and I replied with “Yes I did not” since I didn’t actually come to school the previous day. Was my reply right or wrong?
Hi Uzo, as per the article, technically it’s incorrect to use “Yes” with your negative statement as a negative statement should have a negative intro, “No, I did not.” However, there is some flexibility as we might arguably be implying a reference to the negative statement rather than a simple negative statement – “Yes (you are correct), I did not come.” vs “No I did not come.” (without additional information). Strictly speaking, it would be more correct to say “No, I did not.”, but you may find both forms accepted in spoken English.
Hi! If someone says “you won’t betray me, right?” would the correct answer be “no” as in no I will not or yes I will not. or would responding with yes mean that you would betray them
Hi Ena,
This is another one where I think the meaning of the response would be most apparent in how it’s said – especially as this one has a tag – because technically it could be answered “No [I won’t]” or “Yes [that’s right]”. But yes I would say that the clearer answer without context would be “No.”
If I said to someone “ nothing counts eh ” And they reply “ yeah nothing “ . Does that mean they are agreeing with me nothing counts ?
Yes, that’s right.
Hi phil thanks for the reply . So I would assume when one responds with “yeah nothing “ that it jus a shortened version of saying “yes that’s correct that nothing counts “ . Earlier you mentioned a negative answer requires a negative intro so im a little confused as to what one would say if one was to agree with the statement ie if one was to respond “ no nothing “ as opposed to one responding by saying “ yeah nothing “ what is the difference in meaning of the 2 responses
Hi Mary – good question but this would be one of these cases where both answers might essentially be used to mean the same thing. If you are asking for confirmation of a negative then you’d essentially have ‘nothing?’ – ‘yes [I agree nothing]’ or ‘no [that’s correct, nothing]’. It might depend a little on your context and the tone of the speaker, to make it clear – but I should say these kinds of apparent inconsistencies certainly confuse English speakers too!
Hi Mary, well informally you might hear both with the same overall intention but the meaning would be grammatically different – ‘yes that’s correct, nothing’ or ‘no, there nothing counts’. The positive agrees with the statement, the negative restates it.
I hooe that makes sense?
A: They gave me all the equipment I needed… even a laptop.
B: You didn’t expect tht then?
A: No.
According to this conversation, does A surprise or not for getting laptop?
I think A doesnt surprise. Because I think ”No” in conversation means–> No, he didn’t expect.
Then when I omit No and not, the sentence becomes He expects.
Thus I choose he doesn’t surprise.
But my concern is wrong. Could anyone explain to me?
Hi Susan, sorry for the slow response on this one.
I’m not too sure I follow your meaning of surprise here – the example and your interpretation is correct, the “No” expresses, “No, I didn’t expect that.” So it was a surprise. And without the negatives it would be a different question, “You did expect that?” – “Yes.” (not a surprise).
Hi phill ,
If someone says to another person a negative statement and the person responds with a “ yes” with no further information how do we know if the person is agreeing or disagreeing with the statement . For example if someone says to person X “I do not need to return the items back . They are nice anyway “
and person X replies : “ yes “ what does “ yes “ mean ?
Hi phill ,
If someone says to another person a negative statement and the person responds with a “ yes” with no further information how do we know if the person is agreeing or disagreeing with the statement . For example if someone says to person X “I do not need to return the items back . They are nice anyway “
and person X replies : “ yes “ what does “ yes “ mean
Hi Mary, that’s a very good question but I’m afraid one without an easy answer – really you’d have to go by other cues such as context, expression or tone to decide if they are agreeing or not. It is a quirk of English that I am sure has led to many misunderstandings for native speakers!
Thanks for showing me that instead of just replying yes or no, that simply giving a slightly expanded response, clarifies matters in most situations.
I have found myself confused as a UK English speaker when trying to give a single word response, trying for brevity, then sometimes one or both of us left unsure lol.
I had previously wondered if it was my being bi-lingual in Italian that had complicated things for me – although I know not their “rules”, having never been formally taught.
Happy to help, Alan. I think most people don’t necessarily know the rules of their own language, as for the most part we don’t need to! Most of my exploration of topics like this comes from needing to explain them for students.
Please, if someone ask” you don’t feel like talking? And I replied No,does that I agreed to the question?
And what is the best positive answer?
Hi Ashley, yes “No” would agree with the statement, as in “No, I do not.” But this is a classic case where Yes could also suggest the same answer, “Yes, that’s right, I do not.”
I would say that No more directly agrees with the statement so is more appropriate, but as Yes could also work in practice I think it would really be the tone of the response that would make the answer clear!
I have a question.When a chef asks you “Haven’t I served you?” while you have actually not served,what is the best response?Is it “Yes,you haven’t or No,you haven’t”?
Hi Siaya, ‘No you have not.’ would be the appropriate response to confirm the negative question.
Hi Phil,
This was very helpful. However, if the question is not in spoken English but written, and we can only respond with yes or no and can’t qualify our response with additional information (as in a college form or something), what should be done then?
For eg: “No person has taken any money on my behalf.”
If my choices are simply YES and NO, and I want to say “No, nobody has taken any money”, should I go with YES or NO?
Hi Shruti – excellent question. Those sort of forms can leave native speakers rather confused too, and are the subject of jokes about bureaucracy! But generally speaking, the YES/NO will be taken as meaning the statement is true or false. So in this case, you would be saying YES – as in “It is true that no person has taken any money on my behalf”. In most cases the forms should clarify this with instructions such as “Indicate if the following statements are true or not.” – as this is what we’d mostly be doing.
This is very helpful!
Thank you! Phil!
You’re welcome!
Hi Phil
my question is i have to fill a collage form and can respond in yes or no only and the question is… whether your annual income/ income of your parents or guardian does not exceed _____ per annum. I does know how i should respond… our income does not exceed_____ . should i write ‘yes’ what will it imply?? Yes i exceeds ______ or Yes it does not exceed______. or should i respond it with ‘No’… its so confusing please help
Hi Masa, these can be a bit confusing, and really it is the fault of the writer for not producing a clearer statement – but as I said in a comment above, typically with questions like this the yes/no is similar to saying the statement is true or false. So in this case with ‘where your income does not exceed X’, Yes would mean ‘True, your income does not exceed X’.
If in real doubt it might be worth checking with someone responsible for the paper, though.
Hello, I was responding to a friend when I realized I may be forming a question that may be confusing. My question is “You are not talking to anyone else (then)?” I found myself thinking how they would respond. If they say “yes” does that mean they are agreeing with me or yes they are talking. The same with “no” does that mean no my friend is not talking to another or no they are. Just a little confused.
Hi Emily,
Sorry for the slow reply on this one – that’s a difficult one; to be honest yes due to the structure of the question either answer could apply (or not!) so it does lead to confusion. The way to tell which answer is expected/accurate would be in the tone of voice used for the question – for clarity it might be best to rephrase the question!
So this one sparked a bit of an argument…
I asked a friend” “So you don’t have UPS there?”
And she said “Yes”
I took this to mean she was agreeing with me,and therefore didn’t have UPS because she didn’t add anything else after. Apparently what she meant was “Yeah, we have them”.
We ended up arguing about it and I wanted to clarify because I feel like both can technically be right now, but she insists I’m wrong and don’t know my English.
Was hoping for a second opinion because I like to think my understanding of it (that is, she agreed there were none) is just as correct as saying No.
Hi Cassandra,
This is another case where it’s difficult to say one side is right or wrong, as it can be argued and essentially boils down to intention vs interpretation. I would personally see that as a very ambiguous response without her completing the thought – without more context, I would expect ‘Yes’ on its own, in response to a negative question like that, to be confirming your statement (as you interpreted), as in ‘Yes, that’s right.’, but it could also mean ‘Yes, we do.’, and in part you might get that from intonation. It’s certainly not black and white though.
What the best response to: didn’t you go to church?
I did so I said yes I did.. Is that correct?
Yes, that would be clear as you included the “I did.”
My husband always asks negative questions of me and it drives me crazy because in his case it is obviously an accusation not so cleverly disguised as a question, i.e. “You didn’t go to the store?” It may seem like an innocent question but combined with the tone and body language it obviously is not. So I always answer with either “yes” or “no” in the grammatically correct manner. The result is that he is confused because he asked me a yes or no question, which I correctly answered, but he still doesn’t know whether or not I went to the store. You would think after 25 years he would quit asking negative questions.
Oh dear – unfortunately that’s probably quite a common use of the negative question, as they tend to imply something should have been done!
Hi,
If I were to ask a question like, “you didn’t eat the cookie, right?” And I was given a one word answer of “no.”
Would it be safer to infer that the “no” meant, “no, I didn’t” or “no, I did”. The question asked was quite ambiguous because there is the word “right” at the end. But more often not, what would the meaning of “no” for this type of reply?
Thanks
This is a great example of one where I think the context is everything – there is a strong element of accusation in the question, someone has eaten the cookie and we are trying to establish who, so the response should be quite a clear cut ‘no’ to the accusation, or ‘yes’ admitting to it. You’re right that the ‘right’ tends to encourage a positive agreement in general, but here the situation seems clear enough (we are trying to establish if you ate the cookie) that I’d say the response is quite heavily positioned to be understood as ‘No [I didn’t]’ or ‘Yes [I did]’.
I was just asked a question “is it not correct that you (have had a motor vehicle accident)…” I answered “yes” because it was correct (I had had an accident), but this just caused confusion! What should I have said, or was the problem with the phrasing of the question?
Oh that’s a tricky one – questions phrased “Is it not correct/right/true etc.” are really what we’d call leading questions, it has a negative but is really just inviting you to agree with the statement. There’s a somewhat idiomatic quality to these questions. Generally yes, your response would be the expected understanding – essentially, “Yes that’s true”. But I agree it’s a confusing way to ask!
Phil
Hi Phil I asked someone ” is it enjoyable not to chat with me? And she answered ” yes of course”. Does it mean she is not enjoying not to chat with me or she is enjoying it not to chat with me? Thanks
Hmm, the problem is the question is flawed, as you should have “Is it not enjoyable to chat with me?” (not before enjoyable). The way you have it, indeed yes would suggest it is enjoyable to not chat with you, but with a properly phrased negative question, “Is it not enjoyable…?” then the positive would usually suggest the positive response, that being it is enjoyable. Questions with negatives before a positive word/phrase are usually framed this way to invite agreement to mean a positive response, e.g. “Is the weather not wonderful today?” “Yes, it is!”
Is it correct in French if you reply Si to a negative question you are saying the negative in the question is correct
. For example if we adopted Si in English
Wouldn’t you like some chocolate? Si
sI means that is so – I do not want some chocolate
Hi Susan,
I’m not familiar with the French myself but that sounds like it would make sense and a useful word! I don’t think we have a true equivalent in English; as the article and responses make clear there’s ambiguity with our single words, but phrases, as you say, like ‘that is so’ can clarify it.
Phil
Sorry Phil, I just investigated some more and it seems I am wrong
In French saying Si in reply to a negative statement means you confirm the positive.
I would like to personally anglicise it and say in English, for me, it means “that is so” Sue
“Si = Yes
Si means “yes” in response to a negative question or statement:
Tu ne vas pas venir? Si, je vais venir. (You’re not going to come? Yes, I am going to come.)
N’as-tu pas d’argent? Si, j’en ai. (Don’t you have any money? Yes, I do.)
Jeanne n’est pas prête. Si, si! (Jeanne isn’t ready. Yes, yes!)
“https://www.thoughtco.com/all-about-si-1371381
I was just asked the question “No change under the register drawer and denominations correct?” and I am only able to answer yes or no, I answered yes because in my train of thought “Yes, there is no change left” but my colleague thinks the answer is no, which one is correct and why?!
Hi Luke,
I would take the question as asking to confirm that the statement is correct, so your interpretation.
Shouldn’t we stop asking negative questions?
If i ask someone (dont you work today?) and they say no.
Does that mean that they work?
Hi Nina, sorry for the slow response – I would usually take the “no” as a response to confirm that they would not work in that situation, i.e. “No, I won’t/am not.” The reason being that the negative question here somewhat suggests the speaker expects that to be the case, and is looking for confirmation, rather than asking an open question. Again it’s nuanced though and could depend on delivery, and realistically the way that it is answered could also affect how the answer is interpreted!
Hi Phil, I had asked a friend,” I think you’re not interested, and he replied “Im not”, what does it mean? I’m confused
Hi Merlyn, sorry for the slow response – I’d say that’s a fairly clear agreement that you’ve made the suggestion “you’re not interested” and he has confirmed it “I’m not [interested]”.
Hi Phil. I’ve been looking around online for an answer on this question:
“You never cook?” (A casual but very common form of question, right?)
Would this fall into your discussion and be answered as “No, I never cook.” It doesn’t sound right to me.
Hi Jane,
I think this would fall into the same area as another comment, where as a tag question we’d really expect the answer to echo the statement as fact, as tag questions are generally stated as something that we expect to be confirmed rather than through genuine uncertainty. So in this case “No, I never cook.” would be the typical answer, unless you want to declare the statement is correct, “Yes, that’s right.”
This would be a colloquial question, though, likely to come up in dialogue, so a lot might depend on the tone of voice!
Phil
I love when all grammatical rules are thrown out the window simply because, for no specific reason whatsoever, we as a society just accept it. Lol. Basically, how one responds to a negative question all depends on the person asking the question and the familiarity of all parties involved. This is what you are saying, is it not?
Well, I’d say grammar is a way to try and codify patterns of how people speak, to aid learning and understanding, but it cannot (and should not) dictate how people use language overall, as language is always evolving to suit needs. The rules exist to explain how we communicate, but the way we communicate is not decided by the rules, so popular usage leads grammar and not the other way around. In this particular case, the grammar that we do have available can justify a range of responses, so it’s difficult to lean on any particular rule and yes, I would therefore prioritise understanding the speaker’s intentions (which, to be fair, is a good practice in general).
How do i answer the question:blessing isn’t in school?
That would require more context as it is a tag question, so it’d depend on what it is response to or what it is prompting.
How would you reply if someone said “You aren’t going to do the dishes” when you are going to? Would you say no or would you say yes? To me it makes more sense to say “No, I am going to do the dishes”
I would go with ‘Yes, I am going to…’ there because you are really affirming what you will do, rather than putting the emphasis on their statement being wrong.
How shall I answer to “Was there sometimes nothing interesting on TV for Jack?” if I want to say that there was always something interesting on TV for Jack. Shall I say “Yes” or “No”?
Hi Diona, sorry I missed this; here I’d say the Yes would confirm the statement (somethings there was nothing interesting) while No would deny it (No there were was never nothing interesting, i.e. it was always interesting). It can get a bit confusing with a negative concept because the negative response produces a double negative, but this is still a statement we can either agree or disagree with.
Thank you, Phil!
Hi Phil. Your explanations of what is grammatically correct are very helpful. I want to ask your thoughts about the usage of negative questions and their impact on communication. Often, when I am asked a question in the negative form, I find I don’t like it. It leaves me with a feeling of being judged or that a presumption has been made which I may now have to rebut. I prefer to be asked a direct positively framed question. For example, “I am sure you have plans for the weekend?” a statement posed as a negative question, versus “Do you have plans for the weekend?”, an actual question positively asked. I am curious to know your thoughts about this.
Hi Sabina,
I can appreciate you’re point. Yes, you’re right, negatives do often carry a certain weight, suggesting the answer, a bit like tag questions. Like any language tools I think it does have it’s place, and will be used whether we like it or not, so we can’t really resist it, but I do agree that often (as the discussion in this post shows) it may be best to use more direct, clearer questions!
Phil
Hi Phil, My questions is, when people ask ‘ we didn’t have a heat wave, did we?’ shall I answer ‘No, we didn’t’ if I want to say our city is quite cool and we didn’t experience any heat wave and ‘Yes, we did’ if I want to say we experienced a heat wave few weeks ago. Thanks.
Hi Wendy,
Yes I’d say those are reasonable responses!
Phil