Example sentences
nǐ你ne呢？
And you?
wǒ我de的shǒu手jī机ne呢？
Where's my phone?
The story behind the character
呢
呢 is the "what about you" particle. 我很好，你呢 asks how I am and throws the question straight back, in three characters. It attaches to a bare noun or pronoun with no verb involved, which is where the efficiency comes from. 我的书呢 means "where's my book?" 他在哪儿呢 is a gentler version of 他在哪儿. In 他在吃饭呢 it marks an action still going on. One particle, four jobs.