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Q: "Don't you know?"
If I really don't know, how should I respond to this question? Yes or No?
There's a similar question on EL&U, but the answer isn't clear how it works:
Also here on ELU too:
These answers are confusing. I want to know what one word answer I can use. In other words I want to know:
What will native speakers understand if I reply No to this question?
What will native speakers understand if I reply Yes to this question?
I believe I understand your concern because similar confusion arose at some point in my English study, too, due to a linguistic difference between my native tongue and English. Your language is perhaps like mine, Thai, where you answer to the truth condition of the statement of the question rather than the truth itself. For example, if you ask, in Thai, "aren't you going to school today?" and the answer is "yes," the answerer means they are not going to school. "Yes" here is "yes, (it is true that I am not going to school)," not "yes, (I'm going to school.)"
I think it helps if you think of English as somewhat simpler than that. In English, whether you answer "yes" or "no" only depends on the reality and has nothing to do with how the question is worded. Whether the question is "do you know?" or "don't you know?," "yes" and "no" still have the same meanings: in both cases, if you answer "yes," it means "you know," and if you answer "no," it means "you don't know."
Answering with plain "yes" or "no," however, may sound too flat and could sometimes be misunderstood, so it's safer to respond with a complete answer like "yes, I do." (meaning, you know) or "no, I don't" (meaning, you don't know) if you can't think of anything fancier like "no, I never knew," or "no, this is the first time I've heard about it!"
As stated by other Answerers, one thing to consider is that sometimes "don't you know?" is a rhetorical question, meaning the speaker doesn't actually expect an answer, so you don't have to answer them. You usually can guess from context whether it is an actual question or not.
"Don't you know?" people ask such kind of question is because they though you should know. so your answer to this question is more likely to be negative. you should answer with the reason why you don't know him.
such as "No, I never heard about that."
There are 2 common uses for this phrase - there is the 'slightly posh' "Don't you know" as an end-of-sentence, which is essentially just emphasis & not requiring an answer. Not common these days in speech but you'll see it in older books & films.
The main one is generally where you might have been expected to know something - so, often a rhetorical (or patronising) element to it, which is worth being alert to. It is perhaps worth observing that in more formal use, this expands to "do you not know" (or "did you not know") & NOT "do not you know" as you might have expected!
The usual forms of answer would be "No, I don't", or "Yes, I do" although there is quite likely to be some form of addition, the sharper "No, actually, I don't" or "No, could you tell me please?". If in doubt, keep it simple!
It is possible to use a simple "No" but I think it would be unusual in speech - mainly because of the subtle implications rather than a hard grammatical rule - and therefore the inflections would be important; so a rising pitch, as a question, would probably draw an explanation.
Some of the confusion arises from the facts (a) that the premise behind the question is the opposite of the literal words of the question, and (b) that the question does not actually seek a literal answer.
"Don't you know?" is basically a rhetorical question. The person asking that question actually assumes that you do in fact "know," and since it is assumed that you do in fact "know," no response is required.
However, when you actually do not "know" and wish to make that fact known, the correct one-word answer would be "No."
I think that the main reason for confusion arises from the fact that the question is asked in the negative and the concern is that a response of "No" is a second negative, which combined with the first negative would result in a positive.
However, double negatives do not arise in a two-party exchange. The double negative that results in a positive statement occurs only when both negatives are articulated by the same party within a single statement.
(Note: Even though the correct one-word response would be “No,” most native speakers, whether they are the asker or the answerer, would prefer the more expanded response of “No, I don’t,” because for either party that short-cuts the need to mentally analyze the effect of the negative question and the negative response.)
As usual it depends somewhat on the context, but the phrase "Don't you know?" is very often not so much a question as an expression of surprise, as in:
Alice: I'm going to visit Bob in hospital this afternoon
Cathy: My Goodness, what happened to Bob?
Alice: Don't you know? He's had appendicitis
In which case an answer isn't really required. If Alice is still unsure if Cathy really doesn't know, she may pause for an answer before elaborating, in which case it would go
Alice: I'm going to visit Bob in hospital this afternoon
Cathy: My Goodness, what happened to Bob?
Alice: Don't you know?
Cathy: No, I haven't heard anything
Alice: He's had appendicitis
I would not recommend a one word answer to this question, but whether you go for a simple yes/no or a longer sentence an affirmative "yes" says "I do know" and "no" says "I do not know". Given that the asker felt the need to ask, the answer will almost always be "no".
Answering a negated question is tricky because “yes” and “no” can both be interpreted (in practice) as either agreeing or disagreeing with either the statement or the negation. So, you need to clarify:
And if you’re going to do that, you might as well leave off the “yes” or “no” since they don’t really add any value.
