Questions in German

In our material on grammar, we will focus on questions in the German language. To begin with, there are several types of questions: questions with question words (Fragen mit Fragewörter) and yes / no questions (Ja / Nein-Fragen).
Today we will sort out questions with question words (Fragen mitFragewörtern).In order to ask such a question, you need to put one of the interrogative words at the beginning of the sentence, and the verb should be put in second place.

Examples:

Wie ist dein Name? – What is your name?
Wer bist du? – Who are you?
Was sagt er? – What he says?
Wo sind sie? – Where are they?
Wohin will er gehen? – Where does he want to go?

In sentences with several verbs you need to put the predicate (the verb, which we bow) in second place, and the verb that remains in the infinitive takes the last position. As in the usual sentence in German.

Woher kommen Sie? – Where are you from?
Wann treffen mir uns? – When we meet?

Not to be confused with “wenn”, which also means “when” or “if”, but is used as a union in subordinate clauses: “Wenn er nach Hause kommt, bringt er immer Süßigkeiten” – “when he comes home, he always brings sweets”.

Warum kauft sie diese Hose? “Why is she buying these pants?”

After the verb, which stands in the second place, there always goes the subject expressed by a noun or pronoun.

There are question words that consist of several words:

Wie viele hemden hat er? – How many (how many) shirts does he have?

Here the word “shirts” is in second place before the verb. “Wie viele Hemden?” You can not break, because together they create a question. Please note that about countable nouns (those that can be counted as shirts) we ask: “wie viele?”, And about uncountable ones we ask: “wie viel?”. We also form other questions: “wie lange?” – “how long?”, “wie spät?” – “how late?”, “Wie groß ist deine Wohnung?” – “How big is your apartment?”

There is a question word that changes depending on the kind of noun to which it refers:

Welches Buch liest du? – What book are you reading?

The ending “-es” is because the “book” is “das Buch” (neuter). “Welcher Wein magst du” – “What wine do you like?”. “Welche Blume gefällt dir?” – “What flower do you like?”. “Welche Berge kennst du?” – “What mountains do you know?”.

Question word “wer?” – “who?” may lean on cases:

Wen kann ich fragen? – Who can I ask? (Akkusativ);
Wem soll ich helfen? – Who should I help? (Dativ)
Mit wem gehen wir? – Who are we going with?

Question words may consist of a question word with a preposition. Another example:

Um wie viel Uhr geht sie? “What time is she going?”

Stay with us, in the next grammar article we will explain how to build the second type of questions correctly: Ja / Nein-Fragen.