Japanese Grammar

In the last two lessons, you learned wh-questions with demonstratives: こそあど, e.g. どんな本ほんを読よみますか (What kind of book(s) do you read)？ However, there are still other types of question words, which are not related to demonstratives. In this lesson, you will complete the topic: wh-question. Five Japanese Wh-questions not related to Demonstratives Table of Contents どうして, […]

Last time, you learned Japanese wh-questions with Japanese demonstratives which work as pronouns and determiners, like “どの服ふくが着き物ものですか (which clothes are kimono)？” In this lesson, you will learn the rest of them with their related question words. Japanese Wh-questions with Demonstratives: こそあど Table of Contents どんな: What Kind of… どう: How For review, we will show […]

Last time, you learned Japanese demonstratives: これ, それ, あれ, and どれ like “どれが寿司すしですか (Which one is Sushi)？ これが寿司すしです (This one is Sushi).” You can think of these four words as one group, where どれ is a question word, and the others are its counterparts. In this lesson, you will learn other question words with their […]

Last time, you learned question markers か and の with closed questions, such as “田た中なかさんは大学生だいがくせいですか？” and “田た中なかさんは大学生だいがくせいなんですか？” When it comes to open questions, objects you’d like to ask are likely to be ones you don’t know. What should you describe such things? This is where demonstratives come into play. Explanation for Japanese Demonstratives: これ, それ, […]

Last time, you learned how the explanatory のだ (んだ) works like “これが雪ゆきなんだ.” The functions are to express reasons, interpretation, discovery, summary (rewording), and preliminary remarks. This can then be utilized for question markers. In this lesson, you will learn how to make interrogative sentences with the question markers か and の. Interrogative Sentences with Question […]

In this section, you will learn how to make interrogative sentences. Before moving to the main topic, we would like to tackle the explanatory のだ （んだ）because understanding its functions is significantly important when making and responding to a question. Explanation for How the Explanatory のだ （んだ） Works The explanatory のだ （んだ） is one of the […]