你吃了早饭了吗？

[HashiriKata]

Hi,

I've heard this sentence: 你吃了早饭了吗？

So I wonder if the following sentence is possible: 你吃早饭了吗？

If the latter is possible, then what would be the difference between the two?

(I guess there may be not much (yes? no?), but I'd still like to know if there is some difference)

Cheers,

[xiaocai]

I think both are right. And there are still many other ways to say it, but with only minimal difference among them including those two you gave. If asking about preference, probably I would go for the second one; however they sound the same to me.

[ala]

Depends on what you want to say, they don't have the same meaning.

First one is grammatically correct for putonghua to convey the perfective aspect ("have you eaten breakfast?"、朝食を食べましたか).

But since many chinese are really bad putonghua speakers, second one is also widely used to convey perfective, but it's ambiguous, the second sentence is not really perfective because it can also mean "have you started eating breakfast?"

[HashiriKata]

Thanks all for replying.

Before asking, I got the impression that there isn't much of a difference between the two sentences and you two seem to confirm this. I'm also with ala regarding the slight difference that there is: the 1st sentence puts some emphasis on the completion of the action while the 2nd seem to be more of a general question.

Thanks again for clarifying.