mi, mı, mu, mü: yes/no questions

The idea

A yes/no question takes the particle mi, written as a separate word, after the word it asks about: Kapı açık mı? Its vowel copies the last vowel of the word before it: mi after e i, mı after a ı, mu after o u, mü after ö ü; the consonant never changes. A person ending joins the particle, not the word before it: Yorgun musun?, Haklı mıyım? The third person has no ending: Geliyor mu?

Examples

• Sen evde misin?Are you at home?
• Bu defter Ayşe'nin mi?Is this notebook Ayşe's?
• Siz doktor musunuz?Are you a doctor?
• Çay içiyor musun?Are you drinking tea?The particle copies the last vowel of the word right before it. içiyor ends in o, not in the i of its stem, so it is mu, not mi.
• Çanta ağır mı?Is the bag heavy?
• Ali geldi mi?Did Ali come?The question asks whether the event happened. In the past tense the person ending stays on the verb and the particle comes after it: Geldin mi? (Did you come?)
• Ali mi geldi?Was it Ali who came?The particle follows the word being questioned. Here the doubt is about who came, not about whether someone came.
• Ben haklı mıyım?Am I right?After a vowel the person ending needs a y as a bridge: mı + y + ım. The pronoun ben may be dropped: Haklı mıyım?
• Yarın okula gidiyor muyuz?Are we going to school tomorrow?
• Bu çiçek gül mü?Is this flower a rose?

Watch out

Do not leave the person ending on the verb or noun and then add the particle: Geliyorsun mu? is not the way to ask. In the present the ending moves onto the particle, Geliyor musun?, and the particle stays a separate word, never Geliyormusun.

Try it yourself

1. Add the question particle: Is this house big?

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   mü

   mü: the particle copies the last vowel of büyük, the word right before it, and that vowel is the rounded front ü.

2. Add the particle with the ending for you (sen): Are you tired?

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   musun

   musun: yorgun ends in u, which gives mu, and the ending for you then takes the particle's own vowel, so -sun.

3. Add the question particle: Is the meal ready?

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   mı

   mı: the last vowel of hazır is ı, and a question about a third person adds no ending.

4. Add the particle with the ending for you (siz): Are you satisfied?

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   musunuz

   musunuz: memnun ends in u, so the particle is mu, and the siz ending -sunuz follows the particle's vowel.

Use it today

Write four questions for a classmate, one with each of mi, mı, mu and mü. For each, say which word is before the particle and what its last vowel is.