Asking questions in Japanese

The Japanese language has a different way of asking questions than in English and it is surprisingly simple. In some sentences, all it takes is adding one character to the end and you're using perfect Japanese grammar.


Lets try something simple like "Is this water?"

Making a question

To make this into a question, you let's first look at how say this as a statement. As we've learned before, "water" is 水 and the verb "to be" is です. "This" is said as これ. So in order to say "This is water." we would say これは水です。

To change これは水です。 into a question, all we have to do is add か to the end and say it with an upward affliction.

これは水ですか？(Is this water?)

Question words

Let's say you're wanting to ask a question which needs a question word such as "Where". Something important like "Where is the washroom?"

We know "Where" is どこ and we know to be is です. Washroom, or toilet, is トイレ (toire) and is the subject, so it will go at the beginning of the sentence and needs the subject marker は.

トイレはどこですか？ (Where is the washroom?)

To answer this question, you would change どこ to the location and drop か.

トイレはあそこです。 (The washroom is over there.)

Make sure you practice everyday, and you'll be another step closer to using perfect Japanese grammer. Try changing some of the sentences we've used in other lessons into questions or let me know if you would like some to practice.