Questions
To understand some of this article, you need to understand politeness in Japanese; specifically, ます form. You may read the article here (harder) or just read on knowing that ます is a polite verb ending.
Question marker か
To make a yes/no question in Japanese, you have two options:
- In informal speech, you may raise the intonation to make it a question.
- Add the particle か to the end of a sentence, with rising intonation.
か is a particle that is basically a spoken question mark. It indicates uncertainty.
When using か keep in mind:
- Adding か to the end of a non-polite form word is a bit rough. Try to avoid it.
- Drop だ (not です) before adding か.
Examples
- ねこですか？ (cat is?) -> Is it a cat? (polite)
- ねこか？ – Cat? (kinda rough)
- ねこ？ – Cat? (soft)
- ごはんをたべる？ – Will/do you eat food?
- さけをのみますか？ – Will/do you drink alcohol?
- たのしい？ – Is it fun?
- たのしいですか？ – Is it fun? (polite)
Question Words
To make open ended questions, we have to use question words.
Basic Question words:
- だれ – who
- 何(なに) – what
- いつ – when
- どこ – where
- なん___ – what ____ なん can combine with certain words to form a what___ question word. See なんじ
- 何時 (なんじ)（に） – what time
Question words function as nouns and take the place of the noun you want to know. Question words generally use が after them instead of は. This is because you want to know a specific thing. Answers to questions should also use が.
Particles other than は such as に and を are unaffected.
いつ is a special case, since it should use に, but generally omits it.
Advanced: See also かどうか and Question Endings
Examples
- だれが食べた。- Who ate (it).
→彼がたべた. – He ate (it). - 何がたのしい？ – What‘s fun?
→ゲームがたのしい – Games are fun - どこに行きましたか？- Where did you go?
→がっこうに いきました. – I went to school. - なにをしましたか？ – What did you do?
→ ほんを よみました。- I read a book. - 何時にかえった? – What time did you get home
→ 12時 – Noon. - いつ帰った？ – When did you get home?
→1時間前 – An hour ago
You may also use them later in a sentence, such as:
- この人はだれですか – Who is this person?
- これはなんですか – What is this?
- いまは何時ですか – What time is it?