Intermediate German: A Grammar and Workbook

UNIT SEVENTEEN

Unit 17 Forming questions

Two types of questions

There are two main types of questions in German:

• yes/no-questionswhich start with a verb and can be answered either in
  the affirmative or in the negative:
  Sprechen Sie Deutsch?
  Do you speak German?
  Ist das Ihre Tasche?
  Is that your bag?


• w-questionswhich start with a question word such as wer‘who’,wo
  ‘where’,warum‘why’ and tend to be more ‘open’:
  Wo wohnst du?
  Where do you live?
  Warum hast du schlechte Laune?
  Why are you in a bad mood?

Here are the two types in more detail.

Yes/no-questions

The verb is the first element

When forming a question of this type, the verb is placed in the initial

position, followed by the subject:

Bistdu aus Irland?

Are you from Ireland?

111

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8111

9

1011

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

2011

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

3011

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4011

1

2

3

41111