Making です Sentences Into Questions
”Nothing in this world is a gift. Whatever must be learned must be learned the hard way.“ – Carlos Castaneda
On this page, we’re going to use です (which you already know) and learn how to use the sentence-ender か along with it. First, let’s take a look at these common words. You don’t have to learn them right now, or anything. Just use them as reference, and focus on the grammar. We’re still reviewing です, and learning something new (か), so you have enough to focus on for the moment without adding vocab to the mix.
| Hiragana | Romaji | English |
|---|---|---|
| かぼちゃ | kabocha | pumpkin |
| いちご | ichigo | strawberry |
| ともだち | tomodachi | friend |
| みず | mizu | water |
| でんしゃ | densha | train |
| せんせい | sensei | teacher |
| ねこ | neko | cat |
| いぬ | inu | dog |
Now, let’s take a look at the grammar we worked on in the previous lesson. You’ll learn how to take these sentences and turn them into questions.
Here’s one of the sentences you did in the last chapter, you know, the one with Yoda.
かぼちゃ です = it is a pumpkin
This, as you know, means “it is a pumpkin.” Now, if we add か onto the end (か is a sentence-ender, after all), what do we get?
かぼちゃ ですか = is it a pumpkin?
“Is it a pumpkin?” See how adding the か on there totally changes the sentence into a question (rather than a statement?). So easy, right?
a いちご です = it is a strawberry
a いちご ですか = is it a strawberry?
Now, there isn’t much we can do with the question marker か right now, since we haven’t learned much that will go with it, but we’ll be using it a lot in future lessons. Do you see how it’s attached onto です sentences, though? Understanding this will be important – don’t worry, we’ll practice more.