Lesson 12
Forming Questions with ka
Making questions in Japanese is easy. Unlike English, where you have that silliness of subjects and verbs trading places, in Japanese all you do is stick ka on the end of a word, phrase, or sentence to turn it into a question. For example, do you remember "Ojii-san wa sugu kaerimasu" from Lesson 2? (Grandpa will return soon.) Well, just slap ka on the end and you've turned it into a question: "Ojii-san wa sugu kaerimasu ka." (Will Grandpa return soon?) Simple, right?
Let's make questions out of some of our other previous examples:
- Yoshi wa ringo o tabemashita ka. (Did Yoshi eat an apple?)
- Miki wa sono eiga o mitai desu ka. (Does Miki want to see that movie?)
- Yasumimashou ka. (Shall we take a break?)
By the way, true Japanese doesn't use a question mark. You will see lots of question marks used, usually in advertisements or trendy one-liners, but real Japanese literature does not use it. In a sense, ka is the question mark.
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