〜か

The particle か at the end of a sentence turns a statement into a question. Just add か after です or ます: 学生です → 学生ですか (Are you a student?).

The nice part is that word order doesn't change at all when asking — no inversion, no auxiliary verbs needed. か is also used with question words: これは何ですか (What is this?).

In standard writing, a question with か ending in 。 is enough — the ？ mark isn't required — though in everyday messages ？ is still very common.

Examples

• あなたは学生(がくせい)ですか。

  Are you a student?

• これは何(なん)ですか。

  What is this?

• 明日(あした)学校(がっこう)へ行(い)きますか。

  Are you going to school tomorrow?

Related patterns

• 〜です
• なに・だれ・いつ・どこ・どうして
• ね・よ