Question Words
Question Words
English fronts its question words — "what"/"where"/"why" move to the start of the sentence. Chinese breaks that pattern completely.
Grammar Comparison
Grammar Comparison
Question words stay right where the answer would go
你叫什么名字？(literally: you called what name?)
What is your name?
This is a genuinely different strategy from English. English fronts "what" ("What is your name?"); Chinese doesn't move it anywhere — the question word simply sits in-situ, in the exact spot where the answer would naturally go. 你叫什么名字 (nǐ jiào shénme míngzi) is built the same way as its answer, 我叫大卫 (wǒ jiào Dàwèi, "I'm called David") — 什么名字 ("what name") sits exactly where 大卫 ("David") would. Once this clicks, forming questions becomes mostly a matter of vocabulary, not rearranging word order.
多少 vs. 几: two different words for "how many"
你有几个孩子？(a small, expected number) vs. 这个城市有多少人？(a large, open-ended number)
How many children do you have? vs. How many people does this city have?
English "how many" covers everything. Chinese splits it by expected scale: 几 (jǐ) is for small numbers, generally under 10, and is almost always followed directly by a measure word (几个, 几本) — think "how many, roughly a handful?". 多少 (duōshao) is for open-ended or large quantities, and — unlike 几ge — doesn't require a measure word at all. Asking someone's age with a small child, you'd use 几岁 (jǐ suì); asking an adult, 多少岁 is more natural.
Vocabulary
Vocabulary
- English
- what
- English
- who
- English
- where
- English
- when
- English
- why
- English
- how
- English
- which
- English
- how much / how many (large or open-ended)
- English
- how many (small, expected number)