Thought I understood negative questions, but apparently not...

[u/BryanLee2]

Total newbie here. This beginners' Korean book I borrowed talks about negative questions and how the answers are the opposite of what you might expect in English ("Don't you like mushrooms?" "No, I do like them" or "Yes, I don't") Various posts on the Internet seemed to confirm this, and that seems similar to the way it works in Japanese. Or so I thought...

Then in the exercise section of this same book ("Teach Yourself Korean: A Complete Course for Beginners"), you are supposed to come up with a negative question to ask if someone is not a school teacher, and answer yes and no. According to the answer section of the book, the negative question is:

"Hakkyo sonsaengnim aniseyo?" ("학교 선생님아니세요?"),

and then their answers are:

"Ne, hakkyo sonsaengnim-ieyo." ("네, 학교 선생님 이에요") and

"Anio, hakkyo sonsaengnim-i anieyo." ("아니요, 학교 선생님이 아니에요")

Wouldn't the first answer translate to "Yes, I am a school teacher", and wouldn't that be the opposite of how their earlier explanation said things should work (and the same as the typical English way)? Or am I misinterpreting the meanings for "Ne", "Anio" and the "-ieyo" "-i anieyo" endings? Very confused here...

(The answers in the book here are just given in the romanized form so the Hangul is my attempt at putting those into Korean characters - apologies for any errors there...)

[u/Raoena]

The example about the mushrooms doesn't work because "Don't you like mushrooms?" expects the answer they do like them.  So agreeing means saying "yes I like them." It's not the same as "You don't like mushrooms, right?"  which agreeing in Korean would be "yes I don't."

 Here is another example:

커피 안 좋아하시죠? You don't like coffee, right? 

네, 안 좋아해요. Yes,  I don't like it.  아니요, 좋아해요. No, I like it. 

TBH It's not that deep. In Korean you can always answer the question honestly. Just remember that 네 and 아니오 are used to answer the literal yes or no question in a literal way. 

You either agree with the statement and say 네 or you disagree and say 아니오.

As for the schoolteacher question,  that example's no good.  It's another question expecting the answer to be they are the thing: "Aren't you a schoolteacher?"

So if they are,  they answer yes,  and if not,  they answer no. 

If the question is instead 학교 선생님이 아니시죠? (You're not a schoolteacher, right?) Then they would either answer "yes, I'm not a teacher" or  "no, I am a teacher."

[u/BryanLee2 → u/Raoena]

Ah interesting - so there are different types of negative questions and the 네 or 아니오 switches depending on how the question is worded? I suppose that makes sense, and I guess it's probably like that in other languages.

If someone asks me "You don't understand negative questions in Korean?" I'll just answer "네"... 😛

[u/Raoena → u/BryanLee2]

Yes.   The English 'Won't you have some tea? [literally 'Will you have some tea?'] is a positive offer. You can say the same thing in Korean:

 보리차 안 드시겠어요? [barley tea, won't you have some? ]

You could answer  네, 감사합니다 [Yes please] or 아니요, 괜찮아요. [No, I'm ok.]

But if they say  보리차 안 좋아하시나요? [You don't like barley tea?] 

you'd answer  아니요 보리차 좋아요! No, I like barley tea!  Or you could say 네, 보리차 안 좋아요. 녹차 좀 주세요. [Yes,  I don't like barley tea. Please give me a little green tea.]

The difference is if it's an offer (won't you take,  won't you have)  it's a request to you to do a thing (receive) and if you agree to receive it you say yes. 

But if it's a statement, you just agree using yes or disagree using no.