Questions and Question Words

How to make Questions and a few common Question words

10 MINUTE LESSON RULES: 1. read each example outloud several times. 2. Pay close attention to the notes.

In this lesson we will look at how to make a question in Japanese. There are 2 main ways of doing so. 1) add a か ka to a statement, or 2) use a question word (in English -- who, what, why...). A Prelude... BEFORE THE LESSON YOU NEED TO KNOW... Basic Japanese sentence structure 始めましょう！ Let's begin... CONTENTS: 1. Using か ka 2. Using the question words 1) Using か ka NOTE: ka is a very useful little syllable. Think of it as a ? question mark. KEY SENTENCE: Please repeat several times: あなたは 日本人 です か？ anata wa nihonjin desu ka? Are you Japanese? NOTE: I used a question mark after the ka , but sometimes 'real' Japanese doesn't have it. Also the は is pronounced as wa when used as a particle even though it is a hiragana ha . Let's start with a statement: あなたは 日本人 です anata wa nihonjin desu. You are Japanese. [statement] [now without changing any word, add the ka and see what happens] あなたは 日本人 です か？ anata wa nihonjin desu ka. Are you Japanese? [question] [All we did was add the ka ]

MORE EXAMPLES:

QUESTION	ANSWER
おいしい です か？ oishii desu ka? Is that delicious? [actually there is no 'that' in the sentence]	おいしい です。 oishii desu. It is delicious. [this is a statement & could also be an answer: also there is no it : lit: "delicious is"]
おもしろい です か？ omoshiroi desu ka? Is that interesting? [the topic could be a book, a movie, or anything]	おもしろい です。 omoshiroi desu. It is interesting.

2) Using the question words

NOTE: The second way is to use question words (why, who, how...) just like in English.

THE MOST COMMON QUESTION WORDS:
In the example sentences I have used ~desu ka? But very simply you can just say doko? Where?

どこ doko - where

どこ です か？ doko desu ka? Where is it?

えきは どこ です か？ eki wa doko desu ka? Where is the (train) station? [simply use this format: ~ wa doko desu ka? Where is ~ ?

だれ dare - who

だれ です か？ dare desu ka? Who is it?

かれは だれ です か？ kare wa dare desu ka? Who is he?

いつ itsu - when

いつ です か？ itsu desu ka? When is it?

いつ いきます か？ itsu ikimasu ka? When are you going?

どうして doushite - why

どうして です か？ doushite desu ka? Why?

なに nani [when used as a stand-alone question word or as the last word in a sentence] & なん nan [when used together within a sentence] - what

なん です か？ nan desu ka? What is it? なに？ nani ? What?

なんじ です か？ nan ji desu ka? What time is it?

来た、見た、勝った。
kita, mita, katta
"I came, I saw, I conquered!"