Japanese Yes No Question
However as you see above there are many variants as well as other common responses to yes no questions.
Japanese yes no question. The basic words for yes and no are はい hai and いいえ iie. Pronounced as soh dess そうです is often used as yes that s so or that s correct in response to questions. Although it may seem strange to some of our readers there are different ways of expressing both approval and denial in japanese. I suppose the key thing for english speakers to remember is that japanese yes no responses to negative questions are intended to tell the questioner that whatever they ve just said either is or isn t the case.
In a more formal style one may also use は. However when using casual japanese you don t use the question particle か. When speaking you can tell by intonation that it is a question. When you use formal japanese with a question ending in ますか or ですか you don t need a question mark.
Comparing はい hai ええ ee and うん un はい hai is a polite way of saying yes and can be used in almost any situation. The simplest and most straightforward way of saying yes in japanese is はい hai.