Learning Japanese - Making simple questions using …ですか。

Hello,

Here is our second lesson is this new learning Japanese series. This time you will learn how to build a simple question in Japanese.

Here is the link to the first lesson if you haven’t read it yet. We will re-use the same vocabulary as a basis.

Let’s start with some example sentences:

A: ほん　です　か。

B: はい、ほん　です。

A: やすい　です　か。

B: いいえ、たかい　です。

A: hon desu ka. – Is it a book?

B: hai, hon desu. – Yes, it is a book.

A: yasui desu ka. – Is it cheap?

B: iie, takai desu. – No, it is expensive.

Did you find out, based on what we have seen in the first lesson, how a question is built? And how to say “yes” and “no”?

Let’s have a look at these sentences:

To build a question in Japanese, we have to add the particle か [ka] at the end of the sentence. Note that in written transcriptions of speech such as in manga, novels or song lyrics you might find this か combined with a question mark, or just a question mark, but the standard manner to build a question is by using か.
A particle is a grammatical word that gives a function to the sentence or words that precede it. You will discover that particles are widely used in the Japanese language, therefore have a careful look at them.
はい [hai] – the h is expired – means “yes”, and いいえ [iie] – pronounced i-ye – means “no”.

Now, let’s try it yourself!

Use the following words to build sentences of the type “Is it …?” – “Yes, it is …”.

くるま – car