Question words and sentence structure
Fragewörter und Satzbau
Choose question words for people, actions, places, destinations, origins, times, methods, and reasons.
The first word tells the listener what information you need. Wer asks about a person, was an action or thing, wann a time, and warum a reason. Distinguish wo, wohin, and woher carefully.
Was machen Sie?
What are you doing?
Wo wohnen Sie?
Where do you live?
Wohin fahren Sie?
Where are you travelling to?
Woher kommen Sie?
Where do you come from?
Wann beginnt die Arbeit?
When does work start?
Wie kommen Sie zur Arbeit?
How do you get to work?
Warum lernen Sie Deutsch?
Why are you learning German?
In these direct questions the question word comes first, followed by the conjugated verb: Wo wohnen Sie? Wer ist das? Use wohin for a destination and woher for an origin.
Use these questions to learn where a colleague lives, how they travel to work, and when their shift starts.
Wo asks for a location, wohin a destination, and woher an origin. Choose based on the information wanted, not simply whether the sentence contains a travel verb.
Wo = where; wohin = where to; woher = where from. Wann asks when, warum asks why.
Ask one question each about a person, place, time, method, and reason. Think of a suitable answer to each.