Lesson 6 · Interrogatives

Four stems, thirty-two questions

Thirty-four lines on the day's sheet, and thirty-two of them are questions. They are not thirty-two things to learn: every one begins with one of four sounds, and almost every one is a shorter word you already have with something ordinary stuck on the end. The remaining two lines are not questions at all — they are the answers that arrived alongside them.

≈17 minutes · every reading checked against Jisho.org · the こそあど sets after Tofugu

Lesson 6 of the course

Five lessons of characters and words, and nothing yet that asks for anything back. This one is entirely question words — and it is the first lesson where the right move is not to memorise the list.

1.The first sound tells you it is a question

Sort the thirty-two by their opening sound and there are four piles, and nothing outside them:

Stem	Asks	Words on this page
ど do	which? — pick one out of a set that both of us can see	12
なに · なん nani · nan	what? — no set, nothing to pick from, open	15
だれ dare	who? — neither pattern, plus one compound	2
い i	how many? how much? when? — not identity at all, but a quantity	3

The table counts opening sounds, so どなた is filed under ど here even though the word cards in section 6 group it with the other ways of asking about people. Sounds for finding a word, jobs for using one.

Trick 1 · You know it is a question before the word ends

A Japanese sentence puts its verb last, so you often wait a long time to find out what is happening. Question words are the exception: the very first mora announces itself. Hear ど and something is about to be picked out of a set; hear なん and the field is wide open; hear い and a number is wanted. You can start assembling an answer before the speaker has finished asking.

Arabic gives you no such warning. مَنْ, مَا, مَتَى, أَيْنَ, كَيْفَ, كَمْ and أَيّ share no opening letter and no pattern — each one has to be known on its own. Japanese charges you two syllables and hands back the whole set.

だれ and どこ are not new: both were word cards in lesson 5, filed under people and under town. Today they go to work.

2.Six of them come with three free relatives

Six of the twelve ど-words are not standalone vocabulary at all. Each is the last member of a set of four called こそあど — the name is just the four opening kana read in order. The set works like this:

こ — near me
そ — near you
あ — away from both of us
ど — which?

The rest of the word — the ending — says what kind of thing is being pointed at. Prefix and ending are fully independent, which is what makes the grid below a grid rather than a list. Tap any cell to hear it.

The grid needs JavaScript. The same seven sets are laid out on the question-word reference sheet.

Trick 2 · Learn a row, not a word

Read the grid across and you learn an ending; read it down and you learn a distance. Twenty-eight words, seven endings and four prefixes — so the honest amount of new material here is eleven items, not twenty-eight. When you meet an unknown こ-word later, chop off the first mora and look for the row.

Two members refuse to be predicted, and both are marked in the grid: あそこ is not あこ, and ああ is not あう. Both irregulars are in the あ column, and neither is a ど-word, so nothing you need today is affected.

Why the polite one is the long one

Two of today's words are marked polite, and both are the longer member of a pair: だれ → どなた, and どこ → どちら. That is not a coincidence to be memorised twice. It is one rule that runs through the whole language.

Trick 3 · Politeness is distance, and distance costs syllables

The polite form asks something slightly beside the point. どちら asks a direction rather than a place; どなた comes from the row that gave modern Japanese あなた, “you”. Refusing to point straight at the thing is what makes it courteous, and the extra mora is what you pay for it. Expect this everywhere: when two Japanese words mean the same thing, the longer one is the politer one.

Arabic does the same and you already do it without thinking — مَنْ حَضْرَتُكَ؟ is longer than مَنْ أَنْتَ؟ for exactly this reason.

There is an eighth set the grid leaves out: こっち · そっち · あっち · どっち, a casual contraction of the ちら row and very common in speech. It needs the small っ, which this course has not taught yet, so it is named here and drilled later.

3.Every long one is short ones stuck together

Eight words on the list are longer than the rest, and not one of them is a new word. Each is a question word you have already met plus a piece of ordinary Japanese:

Word	Is	Plus	And means
どうして dōshite	どう dōhow	して shite“doing”, from する suru, to do	why
どうやって dōyatte	どう dōhow	やって yatte“doing”, from やる yaru, to do	by what method
どういう dō iu	どう dōhow	いう iuto say	what sort of
どのぐらい dono gurai	どの donowhich	ぐらい gurairoughly, about	how much, how long
どこの doko no	どこ dokowhere	の noof — links two nouns	of where
なんの nan no	なん nanwhat	の noof — links two nouns	of what
なんで nan de	なん nanwhat	で deby means of, with	by what — and, in speech, why
だれと dare to	だれ darewho	と towith	with whom

When you would actually say one

Taking a word apart is only useful if you can then put it somewhere. Here is each of the eight in the situation it belongs to — a real moment, and the sentence that goes in it.

Word	The moment	What you say
どうして dōshite	Someone tells you something and you want the reason	どうしてですか。 dōshite desu kaWhy?
どうやって dōyatte	A character or a machine is in front of you and you do not know how to work it	これはどうやってよみますか。 kore wa dōyatte yomimasu kaHow do you read this?
どういう dō iu	You have met a word or a sign you do not understand	これはどういういみですか。 kore wa dō iu imi desu kaWhat does this mean?
どのぐらい dono gurai	You need an amount — a length, a time, a distance	やすみはどのぐらいですか。 yasumi wa dono gurai desu kaHow long is the break?
どこの doko no	You are holding a thing and want to know where it came from	これはどこのくるまですか。 kore wa doko no kuruma desu kaWhat make is this car?
なんの nan no	You can see the thing but not what it is about	これはなんのほんですか。 kore wa nan no hon desu kaWhat kind of book is this?
だれと dare to	Someone mentions doing something and you want to know who with	だれとですか。 dare to desu kaWho with?
なんで nan de	The same question as どうして, among people you are relaxed with	なんでですか。 nan de desu kaWhy? / How come?

The tail tells you what has to come next

That is the use of knowing the seam, and it is not a curiosity. Knowing a word means knowing where it is allowed to sit, and for all seven of these the tail is what says so:

の demands a noun after it. どこの and なんの can never end a sentence — どこのくるま, なんのほん. Japanese A の B is English “B of A”, so the question word comes first and the thing you are asking about follows. The same の also gives you だれの, “whose”, which is not even on your list.
ぐらい asks for an amount, and an amount can be the answer on its own — so どのぐらいですか is a finished sentence.
いう behaves like の: a noun must follow (どういういみ).
で names the means — the thing something is done with or by. That is why なんで literally asks “by what”, and why it can be closed with です on its own: なんでですか is a finished sentence.
と, して and やって point at an action, so they want a verb. That is exactly why どうやって and だれと are the two on this page you cannot use fully yet — verbs arrive in a later lesson. Until then, borrow one whole, as よみますか is borrowed above, or leave the verb out and say だれとですか.

The other words on this page

Those sentences carry words the course has not formally taught. None of them is the point of the lesson — they are there so the question words have something to ask about — but you should not have to guess at them. Every one is readable with the characters you already have.

Three of them are not vocabulary at all. They are the machinery that turns words into a sentence, and Arabic does each job a different way — which is worth seeing, because it is why a Japanese sentence looks so unlike an Arabic one:

Piece	What it does	Arabic does it by
は wa	Marks the topic — “as for ___”. Written は, said wa.	Nothing. Arabic marks the topic by putting it first and making it definite — اَلْكِتَابُ جَدِيدٌ.
です desu	“is, am, are”, politely. Japanese needs it.	Dropping it. هٰذَا كِتَابٌ is literally “this book” and means “this is a book”.
か ka	Turns a statement into a question. Goes on the end.	هَلْ or أَ — at the front, not the end.

The rest are ordinary words:

Word	Means	Arabic	Where from
これ kore	this one	هٰذَا hādhā	Section 2, today
あの ano	that … over there	ذٰلِكَ dhālika	Section 2, today
ひと hito	person	شَخْصٌ shakhṣ	Lesson 4
ほん hon	book	كِتَابٌ kitāb	Lesson 4
くるま kuruma	car	سَيَّارَةٌ sayyāra	New here
いみ imi	meaning	مَعْنًى maʿnan	New here
やすみ yasumi	break, rest, holiday	اِسْتِرَاحَةٌ istirāḥa	New here
いま ima	now	اَلْآنَ al-ān	New here
あした ashita	tomorrow	غَدًا ghadan	New here
おてあらい otearai	toilet, washroom — literally “the hand-washing place”	دَوْرَةُ الْمِيَاهِ dawratu l-miyāh	New here
よみます yomimasu	reads — the polite form of よむ, to read	يَقْرَأُ yaqraʾu	New here — borrowed whole

And three verbs you have not used but have already met, because their て-forms are the tails in the table above: する suru, to do in the general sense (يَفْعَلُ); やる yaru, to do in the hands-on sense (يَعْمَلُ); and いう iu, to say (يَقُولُ). Learn them as words now and the compounds stop being opaque.

Trick 4 · Never store a compound; store the seam

Learn eight words and you have eight words. Learn five tails — の, と, で, ぐらい, and the て-form that して and やって are — and you get these eight today plus an open-ended set later. の joins any two nouns, と turns any noun into “with that”, で turns any noun into “by means of that”, and ぐらい makes any quantity approximate.

The て-form is the best of the four and you have just met it without being told: して is it for する (“to do”), やって for やる (also “to do”, more hands-on). It is the shape that lets a Japanese verb attach to anything else, and you will use it every day for years.

Three ways to say why

The day's sheet hands you three words for “why”, which looks like generosity and is actually a decision you now have to make every time. They are not interchangeable, and the difference is register far more than meaning:

Word	Where it belongs	What else it can mean
なぜ naze	Writing, and speech that is being careful. The formal one.	Nothing. It is the only one of the three that can never be misread.
どうして dōshite	Anywhere. The safe middle, and the one to reach for by default.	Also “in what manner” — and native speakers sometimes have to ask which was meant.
なんで nan de	Friends, family, anyone you are relaxed with. Blunt in the wrong room.	Literally “by what means”, which is where the “why” came from in the first place.

Set against those, どうやって is the easy one: it can only mean “by what method”. It cannot be misread at all, so use it freely. That is the asymmetry worth holding on to — どうやって is narrow and safe; どうして is broad and occasionally ambiguous.

Arabic keeps all of this apart without effort, which makes it a useful place to stand: لِمَاذَا for the plain reason, لِأَيِّ سَبَبٍ for the formal one, لِمَ for the short and casual one, and بِأَيِّ طَرِيقَةٍ for the method. Four Arabic phrases, four Japanese words, and they line up.

Arabic builds the same thing back to front

Five of the eight have an Arabic partner made the same way and assembled in mirror image — Arabic glues a preposition to the front, Japanese glues a particle to the back:

Japanese	Arabic	Made of
どうして dōshite	لِمَاذَا	لِ + مَاذَا
どうやって dōyatte	بِأَيِّ طَرِيقَةٍ	بِ + أَيّ
どこの doko no	مِنْ أَيْنَ	مِنْ + أَيْنَ
だれと dare to	مَعَ مَنْ	مَعَ + مَنْ
なんで nan de	بِمَاذَا	بِ + مَاذَا

だれと and مَعَ مَنْ are the identical construction written in opposite order. Japanese word order is not arbitrary once you see that — it is Arabic's, reversed, consistently.

Write どうやって with the う. It is four beats, and dropping it is the usual beginner's slip.

4.い asks how much, not which one

Three words on the sheet begin with neither ど nor なに, and they are the ones most likely to catch you out — because they are not asking you to identify anything. They want a number.

Word	Asks for	Arabic
いつ itsu	a time — any size, from a minute to a decade	مَتَى matā
いくつ ikutsu	a count of things — and, of a person, their age	كَمْ عَدَدًا kam ʿadadan
いくら ikura	a price, and essentially only a price	بِكَمْ bi-kam

Trick 5 · いつ and なんじ are the same two characters

Both are written 何時. Read them nan-ji and you have pinned the question to a clock face — “what hour”. Read them itsu and the unit is left open: the answer could be half past four, could be next March.

So the choice is not about politeness or formality, it is about how big the answer is allowed to be. If you do not know what unit it will come back in, ask いつ. If you want a time on a clock, ask なんじ.

The other two share a different piece: いく (幾), an old word for “how many”. Put つ after it — the all-purpose counter for things — and you have いくつ. Put ら after it and you have いくら, which counts money and nothing else. Two words, one stem, and the tail decides what is being counted.

The two lines on the sheet that are not questions

Thirty-four lines, thirty-two questions. The remaining two are what you say when somebody asks you one — and both are worth having on the same page as the questions they answer.

Word	Answers	Made of
いつも itsumo	“always” — the answer to いつ	いつ + も “when” + “also, even”
ちょっと chotto	“a little” — the answer to いくら or いくつ when the answer is small	Nothing. One of the very few words on this page with no parts at all.

Trick 6 · も turns a question into “any”

いつ is “when”. も is “also, even”. Put them together and you get at any when — which is exactly what いつも, “always”, means. Nothing has to be memorised; the word says what it is.

And this is not a one-off. The same も works on the other stems: だれも is “anyone”, どこも is “everywhere”, なにも is “anything”. You have not been taught those yet and there is a wrinkle waiting in how they behave with negatives — but when they arrive they will not be new words, they will be this rule again.

Write ちょっと with the small ょ. There is a rarer word ちっと with much the same meaning, but it is not the one in ordinary use.

ちょっと also contains the small っ, which this course has still not taught — the same character that kept どっち out of the grid in section 2. It is now the only thing left blocking, and it is one character.

5.なん plus a unit is the whole time system

Fifteen words carry the なに stem, and eleven of them are one frame with a different unit dropped into it. Take the six that name a point first, in this order, and they stop being six words and become one word and a clock:

Word	Unit	Asks	Arabic
なんねん nannen	year	what year	أَيُّ سَنَةٍ
なんがつ nangatsu	month	what month	أَيُّ شَهْرٍ
なんにち nannichi	day	what date	كَمْ يَوْمًا
なんようび nan'yōbi	weekday	what day of the week	أَيُّ يَوْمٍ
なんじ nanji	hour	what time	كَمِ السَّاعَةُ
なんぷん nanpun	minute	how many minutes	كَمْ دَقِيقَةً

One more uses the same frame and has nothing to do with the clock at all: なんにん nannin, “how many people” (كَمْ شَخْصًا). The frame does not care what you drop into it, which is the whole point of a frame.

Trick 7 · Store them in the order Japanese writes a date

Japanese dates run large to small — year, then month, then day — the opposite of the English habit and the same as an ISO timestamp. The six words above are in exactly that order, and the order is free storage: recite ねん · がつ · にち · ようび · じ · ぷん once as a descending scale and you have the sequence for life. Rehearsing them alphabetically, or in the order they happen to appear on a sheet, throws that away.

Two of these show older lessons still working. なんぷん is なん + ふん, and the ふ takes a maru because it lands directly after ん — which is the rule lesson 5 gave for where maru kana are allowed to live, happening in front of you. なんがつ is the tenten doing the same job on か.

A point in time, and a stretch of it

Every word above asks which — which year, which hour. None of them asks how long. The remaining four words on the sheet are how you ask that, and they are not new words at all.

Trick 8 · かん is the gap between, and it turns a point into a stretch

かん is 間 — a gap, an interval, the space between two things. Hang it on the end of a time question and the question stops pointing at a moment and starts measuring a distance:

Point — أَيُّ	Stretch — كَمْ
なんじ nanjiwhat o'clock	なんじかん nanjikanhow many hours
なんねん nannenwhat year	なんねんかん nannenkanhow many years
—	なんしゅうかん nanshūkanhow many weeks

Two units refuse to play along, and both are worth knowing as exceptions rather than discovering as mistakes:

Month swaps its counter instead of adding かん. なんがつ asks which month; なんかげつ nankagetsu asks how many. Different counter, not a suffix.
Day does not bother at all. なんにち is both “what date” and “how many days” — one word, two jobs, and context does the rest. This is exactly why your notes gloss it twice, once on each page. That was never a mistake.

Arabic makes the identical cut and makes it with two different words, which is why this is easier to hold from the Arabic side than from the English: أَيُّ سَنَةٍ is “which year”, كَمْ سَنَةً is “how many years”. Where Japanese adds かん, Arabic switches أَيُّ for كَمْ. Same distinction, two ways of drawing it.

なんしゅうかん has no dictionary entry of its own, and neither does どこの or だれと from section 3. That is the same fact each time: a dictionary does not list a phrase the language can generate. It also needs the small ゅ — lesson 7.

When it is なに and when it is なん

One character, なに, with a short form なん. Which one you say is decided by the sound that follows, not by the meaning, and the rule is short:

Say	When the next thing is	Example
なん nan	a counter, or です, or a word starting with t, d or n	なんじ · なんですか · なんの nanji · nan desu ka · nan no
なに nani	anything else — a particle, or nothing at all	なに？ · なにが nani? · nani ga

Trick 9 · Say both and let your mouth choose

There is nothing to memorise here, because the rule is not arbitrary. t, d and n are all made with the tongue tip against the ridge behind your teeth — and so is ん when something follows it. なんです keeps the tongue in one place; なにです makes it travel and come back. Say the wrong one aloud once and you will hear why nobody does.

The one place the ear does not help is a counter that starts with some other sound — なんかい, “how many times”. Counters take なん regardless. That is the only clause worth remembering as a rule.

The Arabic that maps onto this

Three of today's patterns have an exact partner in Arabic, which makes the translation direction in the drill much less work than it looks:

どの ↔ أَيّ — both attach to a following noun and neither can stand alone.
なん + counter ↔ كَمْ + a singular noun. Both languages take a counting word and one unit; Arabic then puts that unit in the accusative (كَمْ يَوْمًا), which is the closest thing it has to a counter.
なに ↔ مَاذَا — the open “what”, with no set to choose from.
いく ↔ كَمْ again, and the tail decides what is counted exactly as the Arabic preposition does: いくつ ↔ كَمْ عَدَدًا for things, いくら ↔ بِكَمْ for money.

6.The thirty-four, as cards

Grouped the way the lesson argued for, not the way the sheet listed them: people first, then the six with a こそあど family, then the glued-together ones, then the い words with their two answers, then なに and its counters. The note under a card is the structure it belongs to, so a card you have forgotten tells you which section to go back to.

The word cards need JavaScript. The same words, in the same groups, are on the question-word reference sheet.

Drill them for meaning

Three directions, as in lessons 4 and 5 — read it, produce it, and straight into Arabic. Wrong answers are drawn from inside the same group first, and with five groups instead of four that now lands almost entirely on the genuinely hard pairs:

The four ways to ask why, all in one group: どうして, どうやって, なんで, なぜ.
Each point question against its own stretch: なんじ–なんじかん, なんねん–なんねんかん, なんがつ–なんかげつ.
The two いく words: いくつ against いくら.
And the two that were always the worst: どの against どれ, なんにち against なんようび.

If you can take those apart under time pressure you have the lesson.

The drill needs JavaScript. Every word it asks about is in the list above.

7.All of them, in one paragraph

Thirty-four cards is still thirty-four cards. Said in order, as one connected thing, it stops being a list and becomes a route — and the order below is the order this lesson has been arguing for all the way down: people, then the ど family, then い, then なん and its counters. Reciting it walks the structure instead of the alphabet.

Read it aloud once a day, tapping any word to hear it. Each one carries its meaning in brackets, so nothing needs looking up, and the strip underneath lists all thirty-four in order for checking yourself against.

Then press Hide and read it again. The English stays; the Japanese and its meaning both come out of the sentences, leaving a gap the width of the word that was there. Now you have to produce each one yourself, which is the part that actually builds recall. Tap any gap to check that word alone without giving away the rest.

The paragraph needs JavaScript. The same thirty-four words, as cards, are in the section above.

This is the first scene of one day, every word — a walk that carries all 230 words the course has taught so far in fourteen of these, with the question words as the joints between scenes. This one is the doorway.

8.Put one in a sentence

A question word on its own is a flashcard. To use it you need one frame, and one is genuinely enough for everything below:

〜は〜ですか。

は marks what the sentence is about — read it wa, not ha, which is the single most useful irregularity in written Japanese. ですか you already say every day: it is the tail of おげんきですか from lesson 1. Put the question word where the answer will go and the sentence is finished.

Every non-question word below is glossed in the other words on this page, with its Arabic.

1.What is this?

Japanese

これはなんですか。

kore wa nan desu ka

Arabic

مَا هٰذَا؟

mā hādhā

The most useful sentence in the language while you are still learning it — and a live demonstration of section 4: なん, not なに, because です begins with a d.
2.Who is that person?

Japanese

あのひとはだれですか。

ano hito wa dare desu ka

Arabic

مَنْ ذٰلِكَ الشَّخْصُ؟

man dhālika sh-shakhṣ

Both grid words in one sentence: あの from the の row, だれ asking. Swap だれ for どなた and the same sentence becomes polite.
3.Where is the toilet?

Japanese

おてあらいはどこですか。

otearai wa doko desu ka

Arabic

أَيْنَ دَوْرَةُ الْمِيَاهِ؟

ayna dawratu l-miyāh

The polite version swaps in どちら, and in a hotel or a shop that is what you will hear back.
4.What time is it now?

Japanese

いまなんじですか。

ima nanji desu ka

Arabic

كَمِ السَّاعَةُ الْآنَ؟

kami s-sāʿatu l-ān

No は after いま — a time word can sit at the front of a sentence without being marked. That is the only exception to the frame you need today.
5.What day is tomorrow?

Japanese

あしたはなんようびですか。

ashita wa nan'yōbi desu ka

Arabic

مَا هُوَ يَوْمُ الْغَدِ؟

mā huwa yawmu l-ghad

Change one unit and you change the question: なんにち asks the date, なんがつ the month. Same frame, same particle.
6.What does this mean?

Japanese

これはどういういみですか。

kore wa dō iu imi desu ka

Arabic

مَا مَعْنَى هٰذَا؟

mā maʿnā hādhā

Worth having ready before you need it. いみ is “meaning”, and どういう takes the noun straight after it, exactly like どんな.
7.How long is the break?

Japanese

やすみはどのぐらいですか。

yasumi wa dono gurai desu ka

Arabic

كَمْ تَدُومُ الِاسْتِرَاحَةُ؟

kam tadūmu l-istirāḥa
8.Why?

Japanese

どうしてですか。

dōshite desu ka

Arabic

لِمَاذَا؟

li-mādhā

A whole sentence with nothing in front of the question word. Most of today's list will do this — say it alone, add ですか, and it is polite and complete.
9.How much is this?

Japanese

これはいくらですか。

kore wa ikura desu ka

Arabic

بِكَمْ هٰذَا؟

bi-kam hādhā

The first sentence you will actually need in a shop, and the reason いくら is worth learning before いくつ.
10.How many hours is the break?

Japanese

やすみはなんじかんですか。

yasumi wa nanjikan desu ka

Arabic

كَمْ سَاعَةً تَدُومُ الِاسْتِرَاحَةُ؟

kam sāʿatan tadūmu l-istirāḥa

Compare sentence 7, which asked the same thing with どのぐらい. That one leaves the unit open; this one demands the answer in hours. Swap なんじかん for なんじ and you are suddenly asking what time the break starts — one syllable, a different question.
11.Why? — among friends

Japanese

なんでですか。

nan de desu ka

Arabic

لِمَ؟

lima

Sentence 8 with the register changed, which is the only difference between them. Say this one to a friend and どうしてですか to anyone else — and if you are writing it down, なぜですか.

9.Sources

Tofugu, “Japanese Demonstratives: こそあど” — the clearest account of the four-by-nine system anywhere free, with a separate page per set. Read this one: section 2 here is its opening argument compressed, and the pages it links to carry the usage detail this lesson had no room for.
Jisho.org, serving JMdict/EDICT — every reading and gloss on this page, and the check that established どやって is not a word while どうやって is. Keep it open while studying; it takes kana directly.
The Japanese Page, “When to use なん and なに” — the counter-and-t/d/n rule in section 4, stated as a rule with the exceptions named honestly.
NHK World — Easy Japanese — free lessons with native recordings. Question sentences carry a rising intonation that speech synthesis flattens; this is the place to hear it done properly.
Vance, T. J. (2008), The Sounds of Japanese, Cambridge University Press — why ん assimilates to the consonant after it, which is the whole mechanism behind なに → なん and behind ふん → ぷん.
Madinah Arabic and Almaany — the Arabic question words and their harakat.
Question-word reference sheet — the こそあど grid and all thirty-four words, laid out to print. Its companions are the tenten and maru sheet and the hiragana stroke chart.
One day, every word — the walk section 7 opens. Fourteen scenes, all 230 words taught so far, each of them in exactly one scene. It is the only page in the course that is meant to be read straight through, and it is the one to use when the problem is not “what does this word mean” but “which words do I actually know”.