Placement of question words

Revision as of 04:11, 22 November 2011 by Jonathan.pope (talk | contribs)

Question words are one way to form questions in Chinese. In English, question words are also known as wh-words, as the majority of them begin with wh:

Question words
English Chinese
who
what 什么
where 哪里
when 什么时候
why 为什么
how 怎么

In English, question words have to be placed at the beginning of the sentence. This involves changing the word order to allow this re-arrangement. In Chinese, using question words is a lot simpler. You simply place a question word in the place of the thing you want to ask about. Nothing needs to be re-arranged.

So if the statement is

  • 你 是 小李。

the question form - "who are you?" - has the same word order:

  • 你 是 谁?

This works for whatever it is you want to ask about. The question form has the same word order as the statement form:

  • 这 是 什么
  • 这 是
  • 你 在 哪里
  • 你 在 北京
  • 什么时候 来了?
  • 昨天 来了。
  • 为什么 买 了 礼物?
  • 为 我 买 了 礼物。
  • 怎么 学习 中文?
  • 用 课本 学习 中文。

See also