吗 (má): what?

Meanings

1 what?

Characters

吗

má

what?

Examples

HSK 1

你干吗？

Nǐ gànmá?

What are you doing?

HSK 2

干吗这样？

Gàn má zhèyàng?

Why is it like this?

Tips

usage

Rising-tone 吗 is the colloquial "what?" / "why?" that lives almost exclusively in the phrase 干吗. A close variant written with 嘛 - 干嘛 - is more common in modern casual writing and uses the toneless particle reading; 干吗 is the older orthography that preserves the rising tone.

mistakes

Don't confuse the readings: toneless 吗 is the yes-no question particle (你好吗？), but in 干吗 the 吗 carries the meaning "what / why" with a rising tone - even though everyday speech often blurs it back toward ma.

Components

radical

口 kǒu

mouth

Left mouth radical (Kangxi #30) - the indexing radical. Anchors 吗 as a particle uttered through the mouth, the question marker that turns a statement into a yes-no question (你好吗？ "how are you?"). Same radical groups all spoken-particle characters: 吧, 啊, 呢, 嘛 - the conversational toolkit.

phonetic

马 mǎ

horse

Right phonetic 马 supplies the sound, neutralised to toneless ma for the question particle (and shifted to má or mǎ for the other two readings). The simplified 3-stroke shape replaced the 10-stroke traditional 馬. Same phonetic powers a tight family: 妈 (mum), 骂 (scold), 码 (code), 蚂 (ant) - spotting 马 on the right cues all mā/má/mǎ/mà readings.