Back to the Basics of Japanese: 16 Question words

Questions are like clouds: they form, change shape, disappear, and are hard to fully grasp (clouds in the Rocky Mountains, July 2022).

As I reviewed old notes this past week, I found a list of question words in Japanese. Do you know these 16 question words? Guess how many you know in this list then check your answers at the end of this post*:

1. いつ

2. だれ

3. どこ

4. どちら

5. どっち

6. どれ

7. いくら

8. いくつ

9. なに

10. どの

11. どんな

12. どう

13. いかが

14. どなた

15. どうして

16. なぜ

I recognized all of these question words, and I have used and continue to use most of them in my work and communication, but I definitely found a number of questions as I examined them more in depth.

What is the difference between どれ, どちら, andどっち?

All of these mean “which,” but they are used in different situations. One simple answer I found is that どっち is the “which” when used to choose between two items, while どれ is for three or more items. For Example, you need to choose between two fruits:りんごと桃どっちがいい？(Which do you choose, apples or peaches?). My answer to that is どっちも！Give me both!

Another example with どっち is you come to a fork in the road, so two choices, and see a grinning cat in a tree. So of course you ask the catどっちにいけばいいのかな？ (which way do I turn?). The cat will likely tell you it doesn't matter which way since you don't even know yourself where you are trying to end up. どっちも！

For an example with どれ, imagine you have a box of chocolates in front of you and you can't decide which one to try. Talking to yourself, you sayどれにしようかな？(which do I choose?). My answer: 全部 (all). But careful, they are much too good for children.

Now it gets trickier when we throw in どちら. I knew どちら is the polite form of どっち, but it seems to have more uses than just that. You can use it when you have a choice between two things same as with どっち (but sounding more polite of course): AとBどちらを選びますか？

It can also take on the meaning of どこ (where) ! For example, どちらに行かれますか？(where are you going?) and 出身はどちらですか？(where are you from?). These sound very polite, so don't use them with your close friends and family. You may want to use them with the Queen of Hearts, though, because she's nasty if you get on her wrong side, which isn't hard to do.

So どちら can be “where” or “which.” It can also be “who”! To be a good receptionist at the dentist office, you may ask a customer's name withどちらさまですか？Now the real question is which one is more polite, どなたですか？or どちらさまですか？That's a more advanced question to research later.

A few Japanese people also told me どちら can be used for three or more items (just like どれ, but maybe more polite?), so usage will vary between people and doesn't always fit with the “rules” of the textbook. That's the fun thing about learning a language: You won't be wrong as long as you can communicate the meaning you need to get across to someone, and language changes occur even between native speakers! So when you are trying to decide whether to use one phrase or another in a certain situation, just say something and see how it works, then adjust as needed until it works. どっちでもいいよ！

Do you know any other ways to use どちら? Let me know in the comments below!

どの is basically when you want to make どれ link to a noun with the possessive の, so think どれ + の = どの (“which” of a specific group). I didn't find any strange ways to use it that differ from どれ, but let me know if you find any.

What happens when you add も to いくつ and the other question words?

There's a fun trick with all these question words: just add も! It changes the meaning depending on whether the sentence is affirmative or negative. For example, いつ (when) becomes いつも and can mean either “always” or “not always” and “never”. You can't learn these words in isolation. You need to learn them in the context of sentences. So if I want to tell you I always drink tea before breakfast, I'd say 朝ご飯の前にいつもお茶を飲みます。It's a positive sentence. But if I say 朝ご飯をいつも食べない, then I never eat breakfast. That's a lie. I sometimes eat breakfast.

いくつ is an interesting word because it's another way to ask someone's age (the other way is 何歳 or なんさい), or to ask how many there are of some objects or things. When you add も, it means there's a large, unclear number of things. So if want to avoid telling you why I did something strange, I'd vaguely say いくつもの理由があったよ (I had many reasons). If you're eating all my apples and peaches, I'll tell you そんなにいくつも食べないで！(Don't eat so many!). It's harder to find examples with いくつも used in a negative sentence because you would likely use a different expression to express “few” or “not so many” such as 少ない or あまりない.

Although most of the question words can easily be combined with も in both affirmative and negative sentences, there are two exceptions where も is never used in the affirmative (according to the “rules” in my class notes, meaning real speakers likely break them): なにも and だれも. They are commonly heard in negative sentences such as だれもいない (no one is here) and なにもない (it's nothing/there's nothing), but if you wanted to say “everyone,” or “everything/all” you would more likely use みんな/みな and 全部 or some other word instead of だれも or なにも. One exception would be a very common phrase だれでも, which includes で with the も. I need someone, anyone, to eat some of the excess zucchini I grew this summer, so I say だれでもいい！Just send them over.

What's up with いくら?

いくら is a question word that can be used to ask how much something costs (いくらですか？) as well as more generally how much of something there is, so I was curious if there are situations to use it with も to say something costs a lot, or that there is a lot of something, or nothing at all. As I tried searching for how to use いくら + も, my first stop was Google Translate (Warning: always use it with great caution), and when searching for the negative sentence いくらもない I got...

…“No salmon roe.”

Yes, いくら has that other meaning of “salmon roe,” so my search ended in a bunch of sentences about seafood. I'm positive there are non-fishy situations to use いくらも (adding で to make it いくらでも seems promising), but that's for another day.

Did you know there are also 漢字(kanji) for almost all of these question words?

While reading Japanese, you might encounter these questions words in kanji form rather than hiragana. I've most often seen 何 (なに) and 誰 (だれ) written in kanji, and the other question words less often. There is another whole level of ambiguity that appears with some of them as well, which shows the interesting difference between written and spoken language. For example, when you see 何時, you may think it is pronounced なんじ. However, it can also be いつ! Both mean “when” (なんじ more specifically “what time”), but that ambiguity can only be resolved by context or added furigana that tells you which reading to use if you had to say the text aloud. When reading, you can get the meaning without needing to even pronounce it. I'll stop there before I get too deep into philosophizing about the differences between words and their intended meaning, or their sound, and how people actually use them.

What interesting things have you learned about the Japanese question words? I only touched on a few from the list, and there are probably many more nuanced ways to use them, but I hope you found something useful.

*English translations:

1. when 2. who 3. where 4. which (of 2, polite) 5. which (of 2) 6. which (of 3 or more) 7. how much 8. how many 9. what 10. which (with object/category) 11. what kind of 12. how 13. how (polite) 14. who (polite) 15. why/how 16. why