Asking Questions

Asking Questions

As we have seen, the German verb has a strong desire to be the second element in the sentence and it is hard to push it out of the second position.

However, it leaves its second position in questions that ask for a 'yes' or 'no' answer. One also calls these questions 'decision questions', because they imply a decision from the listener.

In such questions the verb moves into the first position and the subject into the second.

Our dialogue provided a couple of examples:

 

In spoken German you also recognize a question by a special intonation of the sentence: the voice goes up at the end of the sentence! practice these sentences out loud to get a feel for it.

Notice the little word 'mal' in the first example. It changes the tone of the question, as we shall shortly see.

Questions that are introduced by interrogative adverbs or pronouns like was or wer or wie or wann request a different type of answer.

With these questions one usually asks for additional information about something one already knows. You may be informed that someone is coming tonight, but you do not know who is coming, how s/he is coming or when s/he is coming. That's when you ask this kind of completive questions.

These questions place the interrogatives in the first position. Sometimes wer or was might be the subject of the sentence. If it is not, the subject goes to third position, in the common pattern we called the inversion of the subject. Examples:

 

The most common interrogative pronouns and adverbs are:

 

These little words are so important, you had better learn them well!