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是不是

shì bù shì

Written shì bù shì, said shì bú shì — 不 becomes bú before a fourth tone.

HSK 1 · word 335 of 3,000

Meaning

• is or is not (used to form yes-no questions)

Example sentence

Characters in 是不是

• 是 shì to be (followed by substantives only)
• 不 bù no; not so

是 to be plus 不 not plus 是 — the affirmative-negative question. Chinese forms yes-no questions this way as often as with 吗.

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