Question words

The other day one of my students requested me to show him a list of common question words. I wrote the list on the whiteboard during the lesson. Today I'll share the same list here.

	question	some-	no- (used with a negative form of verb or adjective.)	-ever
What	nani nan (used with desu ka)	nanika (something)	nanimo (nothing)	nandemo (whatever)
Where	doko	dokoka	dokonimo	dokodemo
When	itsu	itsuka	itsumo (always)	itsudemo
Who	dare	dareka	daremo	daredemo
Which (1. more than 2 choices)	dore	doreka (some of these)	doremo (none of these)	doredemo
Which (2. More than 2 choices. A noun follows dono.)	dono+noun	dono + noun+ ka (some of these)	dono + noun + mo (none of these)	dono + noun + demo
Which (3. Only 2 choices.)	docchi	docchika (either of these)	docchimo (neither of these)	docchidemo
What kind of	donna + noun
Why	doshite Nande (more casual)
How 1	do (used with desu ka)
How 2	doyatte (used with a verb)
How much	ikura
How long	donogurai or donokurai
How old	nansai
How many people	nannin nanmei (more formal)	nanninka nanmeika		nannindemo nanmeidemo (any number of people)
How many things	ikutsu	ikutsuka		Ikutsudemo (any number of things)
What time	nanji			nanjidemo

Here are explanations for the words marked in yellow.

docchi : meaning “which one” when you have two alternatives like meat or fish. It often refers to directions like this way or that way.

donogurai/donokurai：refers to time, distance or degree.

1. Tokyo kara Osaka made donogurai (or nanjikan) kakarimasu ka? “How long (or how many hours) does it take to travel from Tokyo to Osaka?”　
2. Tokyo kara Osaka made donogurai (or nankilo) desu ka?　“How long (or how many kilometers) is it from Tokyo to Osaka?”
3. kono test wa donogurai muzukashii desu ka? “ How difficult will this test be?”

ikutsu：A general counter for objects, so you can use “ikutsu” for anything you want to know the number of. There are many other counter words for certain types of objects. Japanese people usually choose the appropriate counter word over “ikutsu” according to the object in question.

dokonimo: “Ni” is a particle which has two different meanings when it is used with “doko”. One indicates direction meaning “to” or “towards”. The other one indicates location meaning “in” or “at”.

1. ashita wa dokonimo ikanai.  “I’m not going anywhere tomorrow.”
2. konoo machi wa conbini ga dokonimo nai.  “There are no convenience stores anywhere in this city.”

How is a series of these words used? Let’s take the nani-series as an example.

• Q. nani o tabeteimasu ka? >> A. ramen o tabeteimasu. “Q. What are you eating? >> A. I’m eating ramen.”
• Q. Asagohan o tabemashita ka? >> A, iie, kyo no asa nanimo tabemasendeshita. “Did you have breakfast? >> No, I didn’t eat anything this morning.”
• Q. nani o tabemasho ka? >> A. nandemo ii desu yo. “What shall we eat? >> A. Anything is fine.”

Listing out these words really helps you learn them. I suggest you always make lists or charts of words or expressions in your notebook. This way is much better than writing down the words randomly!!