How to Make Questions in Japanese (the か Particle)

Forming questions in Japanese is one of the easiest things you'll learn — there are no word-order changes and no “do/does” to add like in English.

Add か to make a question

Take a statement and add か at the end: 学生です (I am a student) → 学生ですか (Are you a student?). The word order stays exactly the same. That is the entire core rule.

Question words

• 何 (nani/nan) — what
• 誰 (dare) — who
• どこ (doko) — where
• いつ (itsu) — when
• どうして / なぜ — why
• いくら (ikura) — how much · どう — how

Examples

• これは何ですか。 — What is this?
• トイレはどこですか。 — Where is the toilet?
• いつ来ますか。 — When will you come?

Casual questions

In casual speech, か is often dropped and you simply raise your intonation: 行く？ (Going?), 食べる？ (Want to eat?).

Practice tip

Turn statements you already know into questions by adding か, then swap in a question word. With just か and a handful of question words, you can ask about almost anything.

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