Here we are on a very important course. A course which will be very light but which is all the same important, and closely linked with the course on end of sentence particles that we saw a little earlier.
So far, we have learned to create a question in Japanese using the particle か. We have learned to do a total interrogation, that means the question is about the whole sentence. A total interrogation is also called a closed question, meaning that the question can only be answered with « yes » or « no ».
Now we are going to learn how to do a partial interrogation where the question relates to a precise element of the sentence, an element which is unknown to us.
To create a partial interrogation, we need two things: we need to use an interrogative word which will denote the element which is unknown to us, mainly what we will be focusing on in this course, and then we need to put the sentence in the interrogative form. So that we already know how to do, besides in the course on the explanatory form のだ, we saw that there are several ways of putting a sentence in the interrogative form.
However, in this course, I will mainly put the particle か at the end of the sentence for simplicity. This way, we can focus on the main topic of this course. Be aware that in the exercises to come, you will have to train yourself with the different ways of asking a question.
That being said, I can now introduce you to the various Japanese interrogative words :
誰 . だれ → Who ? (to ask a question about a person)
何処 . どこ → Where ? (to ask a question about a place)
何 . なに → What ? (to ask a question about something)
何時 . いつ → When ? (to ask a question about the moment, about the time)
Before going any further, I want you to observe the kanji that make up the interrogative words 何処 . どこ and 何時 . いつ . The first kanji is the same as for the interrogative word 何 . なに . Learn these interrogative words by heart, even their kanji version, without forgetting 誰 . だれ .
I want to clarify that the interrogative words 何処 . どこ and 何時 . いつ are most often written in hiragana although I wanted to put them in kanji form, so you will recognize them if you come across them. However, from the next lesson on I will only use hiragana writing.
Finally, also remember that the interrogative word 何 . なに is pronounced なん before the kana which belong to the lines t-, d- and n-, so た, ち, つ, て, と and then だ, ぢ, づ, で, ど and finally な, に, ぬ, ね, の.
So, if we have a の just after the interrogative word 何 . なに , it will be pronounced 何の. なんの. And then, later, we’ll see that it can also be pronounced なん before a compound word but I’ll remind you when we get there. Finally, know that the reading なん is indeed a purely Japanese reading, not to be confused with the なんだ that we get with the explanatory sentence のだ. These are two different things to distinguish.
So here we are with four of the most common interrogative words. There are others of course but we have enough to have some fun.
To use all these interrogative words, we are going to base ourselves on a declarative sentence which has several elements.
ライオネルは今朝バス待合所の下でアイスクリームを食べる。
Lionel eats an ice cream under the bus shelter this morning.
For information, the word バス待合所 . バスまちあいショ means « bus shelter ». This is probably the first time I have used this word, it is vocabulary, remember it. We also have a synonymous word which is バスシェルター from English for « bus shelter ».
From this sentence, I will be able to ask different questions about the different supplements that compose it.
Ask a question about something
If I want to ask a question about what Lionel eats :
What does Lionel eat under the bus shelter this morning ?
So how do we do? Here the question is about one thing, what I am asking the question about. That something is what Lionel eats. An ice cream. I therefore replace the word « アイスクリーム » by the corresponding interrogative word to ask a question about a thing : 何 . なに.
ライオネルは今朝バス待合所の下で何を食べるか。
What does Lionel eat under the bus shelter this morning ?
Well, that’s as simple as that. The interrogative noun is placed exactly at the place of the word « アイスクリーム ». And we leave it right there. You can see that we do not place the interrogative noun at the beginning of the sentence as is the case in European languages.
You also notice that we keep in the sentence the particle を which is the particle indicating that 何 is the COD of the verb 食べる. It is therefore important to conserve the particle.
And since this is an interrogative sentence, we put the particle か at the end of the sentence to indicate that it is an interrogative sentence.
Which gives us :
ライオネルは今朝バス待合所の下で何を食べるか。
What does Lionel eat under the bus shelter this morning ?
Ask a question about the place
If I want to ask a question about where Lionel is :
Where does Lionel eat ice cream this morning ?
Here, the question concerns the place where Lionel is. This place is « under the bus shelter ». I therefore replace the nominal group « バス待合所の下 » by the corresponding interrogative word to ask a question about the place : 何処 . どこ.
ライオネルは今朝何処でアイスクリームを食べるか。
Where does Lionel eat ice cream this morning ?
Well, that’s as simple as that. The interrogative noun is placed exactly at the place of the nominal group « バス待合所の下 ». And we leave it right there. Without forgetting the particle か at the end of the sentence to indicate that it is a question.
Which gives us :
ライオネルは今朝何処でアイスクリームを食べるか。
Where does Lionel eat ice cream this morning ?
Ask a question about the time, the moment
If I want to ask a question about the moment :
When does Lionel eat ice cream under the bus shelter ?
The question here is about the moment. This moment is « this morning ». I therefore replace the nominal group « 今朝 » by the corresponding interrogative word to ask a question on the moment : 何時 . いつ.
ライオネルは何時バス待合所の下でアイスクリームを食べるか。
When does Lionel eat ice cream under the bus shelter ?
Well, that’s as simple as that. The interrogative noun is placed exactly at the place of the nominal group « 今朝 ». And we leave it right there. Without forgetting the particle か at the end of the sentence to indicate that it is a question.
Which gives us :
ライオネルは何時バス待合所の下でアイスクリームを食べるか。
When does Lionel eat ice cream under the bus shelter ?
Note that the interrogative noun 何時 . いつ does not take a particle に. Remember, in the course about time complements, we saw that time complements are generally used without the particle に, and this is also the case for the interrogative noun 何時 . いつ.
Ask a question about the person
If I want to ask a question about the person :
Who eats an ice cream under the bus shelter this morning ?
Here, the question is about the person. The person is Lionel. I replace ライオネル with the corresponding interrogative word to ask a question about the person : 誰 . だれ.
誰は今朝バス待合所の下でアイスクリームを食べるか。
Who eats an ice cream under the bus shelter this morning ?
Well, that’s as simple as that. The interrogative noun is placed exactly at the place of the noun ライオネル. And we leave it right there. Without forgetting the particle か at the end of the sentence to indicate that it is a question.
Which gives us :
誰は今朝バス待合所の下でアイスクリームを食べるか。
Who eats an ice cream under the bus shelter this morning ?
And finally... it’s not over yet ! In Japanese, it is not possible to make an interrogative word a theme. This is not possible because the theme of the sentence is what we are going to give information about, what we are going to talk about, and it cannot be something that we do not know, the nature of which we do not know. We cannot tell much about something we knew not initially.
So, in our sentence, we cannot have the topic particle は on the interrogative noun 誰 . だれ. So what are we going to do ? Well, you got it here, the interrogative noun 誰 . だれ which is my topic is grammatically the subject of the verb. We therefore replace the particle は by the particle が.
So, the correct sentence is :
誰は今朝バス待合所の下でアイスクリームを食べるか。
Who eats an ice cream under the bus shelter this morning ?
Thus, this is a use that we mentioned in the course on the particle が, the particle が is used to draw attention to the subject of the verb and will be used in particular to ask a question on the subject. So, we use the particle が and not the topic particle は.
And when it comes to answering the question, we must use the particle が in our response. So, we will answer :
ライオネルが今朝バス待合所の下でアイスクリームを食べる。
It’s Lionel who eat an ice cream under the bus shelter this morning.
And so, we come back to this use of the particle が which serves to draw attention on the subject of the verb. What interests us in this sentence is not the fact that he eats an ice cream under the bus shelter. It is that it’s Lionel who eat an ice cream under the bus shelter this morning. We give information on the subject of the verb.
In all the questions we have asked previously, each time I repeated all the complements but of course, if the context immediately implies all the complements, we can very well ask the question by focusing only on the interrogative noun and verb. And when it comes to giving an answer, we can definitely just focus on the term that answers the question plus the verb.
ライオネルが食べる。
It’s Lionel who eat.
We can also answer more simply :
ライオネル。
Lionel
However, this answer is much less polite even if it is possible to answer this way. However, avoid this kind of response with strangers in the street or your teachers or supervisors.
So, to summarize, to ask a partial question in Japanese, we need an interrogative word that corresponds to the item on which we want to ask the question. And we put it in the sentence in its place with the particle that indicates its grammatical function.
Okay, so far it was easy. We used the response sentence with all the complements to ask our questions, but of course you won’t always have the response sentence in front of you to know how to phrase your question. You have to practice until you acquire automatisms in order to be able to ask complex questions with all the complements in the right order.
And since we are talking about it, let’s take the opportunity to do a few sentences, just to practice a little.
If we want to say « Where is Leona’s plush ? », we’ll say :
レオナの縫い包みは何処にある？
Where is Leona’s plush ?
In this sentence, we use the particle に to indicate the place. Of course, this is a place where nothing is happening so we use the particle に. Next, we talk about Leona’s plush. A plush is a non-living object, so we use the verb ある.
Now, if we want to say « When will Alexandra drink her grape juice ? », we’ll say :
アレクサンドラは何時グレープジュースを飲むか？
When will Alexandra drink her grape juice ?
In this sentence, Alexandra is the topic of my sentence and the interrogative noun is 何時 . いつ. Nothing complicated here, let’s move on to another example.
Now, if we mean « Until when will Bobby use the dictionary ? », we’ll say :
ボビーは何時まで辞書を使うか？
Until when will Bobby use the dictionary ?
In this sentence, you can notice that we have the interrogative noun 何時 . いつ which is used to ask a question about the time, the moment, followed by the particle まで. And in this case, 何時まで means « until when » and indicates that we are asking a question about the time limit for using the dictionary.
One last example before moving on. This time, I’ll give you the sentence in Japanese first. Observe how this sentence is constructed :
テーブルの上に誰のリンゴジュースか？
Observe the interrogative noun 誰. It is located in a possession. 誰のリンゴジュース, which means « whose apple juice ».
Now let’s take the whole sentence and that gives us :
テーブルの上に誰のリンゴジュースか？
Whose apple juice is on the table ?
This example is there to show you that it is quite possible that an interrogative noun is in a membership with the particle の.
Now that we’ve seen all of this, let’s learn how to combine interrogative nouns with particles to create new words.
In Japanese, we can combine interrogative words with the particle か to create undefined words :
+か (undefined word)
誰か . だれか → Somebody (an undefined person)
何処か . どこか → Somewhere (an undefined place)
何か . なにか → Something (an undefined thing)
何時か . いつか → One day (an undefined moment)
We have just created new words, obviously they are no longer interrogative words that allow us to ask a question but we will use them as nouns in our sentences.
To give you a quick example :
道場には誰かがいる。
In the dojo, there is someone.
Note that after my word, I put the particle that will specify its grammatical function in the sentence, が, the subject of the verb.
Then we can combine interrogative words with the particle も to indicate an absolute positive value :
+も (absolute positive value)
誰も . だれも → Everyone (all people)
何処も . どこも → Everywhere (all places)
何も . なにも → All (all things)
何時も . いつも → Always (all times)
We just created new words again. You may have recognized the adverb of frequency 何時も . いつも that we encountered in the lesson on adverbs and adverbial particles. As for Docomo (yes, it is written like that), it is the name of the number one mobile operator in Japan, and its name comes from the phrase « Do Communication over the Mobile network », which gives the pun for 何処も . どこも, the telephone network that covers the entire Japanese territory.
These words, we will also use them with verbs in the negative form, which we will see later. Thus, interrogative words combined with the particle も and placed in a negative sentence allow to indicate an absolute negative value :
+も+Verbs in negative form (absolute negative value)
誰も . だれも → Nobody (no people)
何処も . どこも → Nowhere (no places)
何も . なにも → Nothing (no things)
何時も . いつも → Never (at no time)
I give you a quick example :
ジュリアンは何処にもいない。
Julian is nowhere.
We have the verb いる in the negative form いない, and observe the interrogative noun 何処 . どこ and the particle も. They are separated by the particle に. Indeed, to indicate the grammatical function of this term, we put the particle に between the interrogative noun and the particle も. Unless it is the particle は, が and を since も is a particle of emphasis. We have seen that all the emphasis particles begin after the particles は, が and possibly を they replace.
Finally, we can combine interrogative words with the particle でも to encompass any element whatsoever :
+でも (encompass any element whatsoever)
誰でも . だれでも → Anyone (all people whatever)
何処でも . どこでも → Anywhere (any place, whatever)
何でも . なにでも → Anything (all things, whatever)
何時でも . いつでも → Anytime (any moment, whatever)
I give you a quick example :
風香は何でも食べる。
Fuuka eats anything.
As a reminder, here too the particle でも is an emphasis particle. To indicate the grammatical function, we put the particle between the interrogative noun and the particle でも, except that here it therefore replaces the particles は, が and possibly を, and you can see in this sentence that we do not have the particle を because it is replaced by the emphasis particle でも.
Come on, one more last example :
帯人はいつでも市立図書館に行く。
Taito goes to the city library anytime.
This course is now over. Today you have discovered your first interrogative words in Japanese. I say « first » because you can imagine that there are many more that we will discover from the next course. These new interrogative words that we will see next time work exactly like the ones we just saw.
For now, as usual, take your time to re-read this lesson, to understand everything we just studied today because in the next lesson we will still study lots of new things. It will be a very dense course but equally interesting, I can assure you.
And to be sure that you understand this new lesson correctly, you have exercises to do, as always theme and version. I think you will have noticed that things are starting to get serious, but be courageous, don’t give up !
With that, I leave you to your homework and I expect you to the next course.
Introduction