Questions

Asking questions — the W-words and the yes/no inversion.

The W-questions

Open questions in German start with a W-word (like English "wh-"). The pattern is fixed: W-word — verb — subject. The verb stays in position 2.

W-word	Meaning	Example
wer	who	Wer bist du?
was	what	Was machst du?
wo	where	Wo wohnst du?
wohin	where to	Wohin gehst du?
woher	where from	Woher kommst du?
wann	when	Wann beginnt der Kurs?
wie	how	Wie heißt du?
warum	why	Warum lernst du Deutsch?
wie viel / wie viele	how much / how many	Wie viel kostet das?
welcher / welche / welches	which	Welche Farbe magst du?

Woher kommst du?

Where do you come from?

woher = where from. Answer: "Ich komme aus …" (aus + Dativ).

Wann hast du Zeit?

When do you have time?

W-word first, verb (hast) second, subject (du) third.

wer across the cases: wer / wen / wem

The question word wer (who) changes by case, exactly like the articles der/den/dem:

wer? (Nominativ) — who is doing it?
wen? (Akkusativ) — whom? (direct object, and after für/ohne/…)
wem? (Dativ) — to whom? (and after mit/bei/zu/…)

Wer kommt heute?

Who is coming today?

wer — Nominativ, the subject doing the action.

Wen siehst du?

Whom do you see?

wen — Akkusativ, the direct object of "sehen". Also: "Für wen ist das?"

Mit wem sprichst du?

With whom are you speaking?

wem — Dativ, after "mit" (which always takes Dativ).

Yes/no questions — verb first

To ask a question that can be answered with ja or nein, drop the W-word and move the verb to the front (before the subject). The rest of the sentence stays the same.

Statement: Du wohnst in Berlin. → Question: Wohnst du in Berlin?

Sprichst du Deutsch?

Do you speak German?

Verb (sprichst) first, then subject (du). Answer: Ja / Nein.

Hast du morgen Zeit?

Do you have time tomorrow?

No W-word — verb moves to position 1 to signal a yes/no question.

doch — the third answer: if someone asks a negative question ("Kommst du nicht?" = Aren't you coming?) and you want to contradict it positively ("Yes, I am!"), you answer Doch!, not "Ja." This little word has no English equivalent.

Questions in one line

W-question: W-word — verb — subject (Wann kommst du?).
Yes/no question: verb — subject (Kommst du?).
"Who" declines: wer (Nom) / wen (Akk) / wem (Dat). Contradict a negative question with Doch!

Related

• Pronouns — wer/wen/wem alongside the personal pronouns
• Word Order — the position-2 rule these question patterns rely on
• Conjunctions — ob turns a yes/no question into a subordinate clause