Question[의문문 만들기]1

 

 

You can learn to make questions in Korean with these.

 

The main difference between English, there is no need to change to make a question in Korean. Let’s see the two types of question.

 

1.  Yes/No Question

 

Questions to answer yes or no are very easy to make in Korean. You just put the question mark “?” in endings in written Korean. In conversation, you have to raise your intonation at endings to represent the question mark. First, use the ending ‘요’  when you make a declarative sentence instead of ‘다’.  Then this sentence is the same as an interrogative sentence. Grammatically correct and sounds natural.  

 

[Example]

 

학교에 다녀왔어요.

학교에 다녀왔어요?

 

식당에 사람이 많아요.

식당에 사람이 많아요?

 

밖에 비 와요.

밖에 비 와요?

 

If you prefer to use the ending -습니다, you should change the ending to -니까 when you ask a question. 

[Example]

 

학교에 다녀왔습니다.

학교에 다녀왔습니까?

 

식당에 사람이 많습니다.

식당에 사람이 많습니까?

 

밖에 비가 많이 옵니다.

밖에 비가 많이 옵니까?

I recommend using the ending -요. Because it is easy and sounds natural. Many Koreans prefer to use the ending -요, especially young people. But if you talk with very old people or big boss, you had better use ending -습니다.

 

 

2. Question with interrogative words

 

What’s an interrogative word? It is like what, where, when, etc. Here are interrogative words in Korean.

 

무엇 - What 

누구 - Who 

언제 - When

어디 - Where

왜 - why

어떻게 - how

 

[Example]

 

좋아하는 과일은 무엇이에요?    What’s your favourite food?

 

누구랑 만나기로 했어요?    Who are you going to meet?

 

점심시간이 언제예요?       When is your lunch break?

 

그 사람 집이 어디예요?           Where is his house?

If you change this to declarative sentences, you can see that there is no change in the order in Korean.

 

좋아하는 과일이 무엇이에요?  -> 좋아하는 과일은 무엇(사과, 딸기…)예요.

 

누구랑 만나기로 했어요? -> 누구(언니, 친구)랑 만나기로 했어요.

 

점심시간이 언제 예요? -> 점심 시간이 언제(1시)예요.

 

 그 사람 집이 어디예요? -> 그 사람 집이 어디(서울, 부산)예요.

 

왜 and 어떻게 work different, so I don’t want to deal with those now.

 

I will provide more examples and exercises, and an explanation about 왜 and how.