Asking questions — Pocket Japanese

The かka Particle

Asking questions in Japanese.

かka works like a '?'. It indicates that the sentence is a question. It is placed at the end of a sentence, like a question mark!

れいぶんExample sentence::

かれkareはwaがくせいgakuseiですdesuかka。 Is he a student?

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Practice

Drag the words to the bottom boxes to rearrange the sentences.

Leila

gakusei

wa

desu

ka

Tip: If your viewing on your phone, some features will require you to hold your phone horizontally!

How are you?

げんきですか。

Let’s look at asking ‘how are you’ in 日本ご!

You may have noticed the word ‘げんき’(genki) in today’s word list. げんき means to be well, and is used to ask people if they’ve been well upon seeing them. Let’s dive in! Today we’ll look at 3 sentences.

げんきですか。= Are you well?

おげんきですか。= Are you well?

げんきです。= I am well.

As you can see, we have two similar options for ‘are you well’.
Either can be used, however in 日本ご there are a few words that you’ll come across as we study that can have お or ご added to the front to show an extra level of politeness.
It is important to note you canot use おげんき when responding that you are well.
An important part of 日本ご is honouring the person you are speaking to, rather than yourself.
Adding おげんき when replying ‘I am well’ would be honouring yourself, which is frowned upon in Japanese.
As we go along, you’ll learn many features of Japanese language involve being humble.

Example Dialogue 1:

Téa: Reira chan, げんきですか。

Leila: はい、げんきです。げんきですか。

Téa: はい, げんきです。

Example Dialogue 2:

Leila: おはようございますせんせい。おげんきですか。

せんせい:おはようござうます。はい、げんきです。げんきですか。

Leila: はい, げんきです。

We will study other replies in the future, however like in えいご, if you were to reply ‘I’m not great’ to ‘how are you’, people might enquire as to why, and we need a higher level of 日本ご to communicate that!

Punctuation note:

In Japanese, their full stop looks a tad different: 。

Rather than using a ‘?’ after か, we simply place a ‘。’. This is because the か particle is already marking the question.

Read and translate the following sentences. Click ‘えいご’ to view the answer.

Translation Button

かれRomaji: kareClass: Hiraganaは学生Romaji: gakuseiClass: Kanjiですか。

Is he a student?

かれRomaji: kareClass: Hiraganaは先生Romaji: senseiClass: Hiraganaです。

No. He is a teacher.

かのじょRomaji: kanojoClass: Hiraganaは先生Romaji: senseiClass: Hiraganaです。

She is a teacher.

かのじょRomaji: kanojoClass: Hiraganaは先生Romaji: senseiClass: Hiraganaですか。

Is she a teacher