In this article we are going to look at question forming in Russian. This subject is one of the first and most important rules that you learn in your Russian lessons. Usually, Russian language teachers don’t focus on this topic for a long time, so we believe that our article can be useful for Russian learners at all levels as a rehearsal or a source of new knowledge. There are two ways of asking a question: using a question word or using a right intonation.
Using a question word
There is a dozen of most common question words in Russian. Roughly half of them is invariable, others change depending on case, gender, or number.
It is quite easy to make a question with a question word. The neutral word order is the following:
Question word – Subject – Verb (– Object)?
Practice Russian with our chat bot!
Free and effective! Куда ты идешь?
Where are you going?
Кому он отдал деньги?
Whom did he give the money to?
The invariable question words are:
Где? – Where?
Куда? – Where to?
Когда? – When?
Откуда? – Where from?
Почему? – Why?
Зачем? – What for?
Как? – How?
Сколько? – How much?
Two popular question words, кто? who? and что? what?, have case declension, i.e., they mark a case like in the example below:
– Кому ты звонишь? Whom are you calling?
– Я звоню маме! I am calling mum!
Note that both мама and кто show Dative case because it is required by the verb звонить.
There are two very special question words: какой? which? and чей? whose?
Какой? changes with case, number and gender, just like an adjective:
– Какую машину ты купил? Which car did you buy?
– Красивую! A beautiful one!
Чей? has its own declension, it also marks gender, number in case but in its own unique manner. You may remember these special question words from your beginner Russian course:
– Чьими ключами ты открыла дверь? Whose keys did you use to open the door?
– Твоими. Yours.
Using an intonation
The second way to ask a question in Russian may be even easier that the first one! Probably you have noticed that your Russian teacher often asks questions without the help of any question word. So, how to do that?
To ask a question this way you need to accentuate the most important word. To do so, rise your voice on the stressed syllable of the word that you are asking about:
________/\_______
– Ты купил молоко? Did you buy milk?
_______________/\_
– Ты купил молоко? Why did you buy milk?
In the first example we stress the word купил to ask whether he bought milk. In the second one, the word молоко is accentuated, meaning that we are asking about milk – why did he buy it.
As you may see from our article, making questions in Russian is easy, and you don’t even need to remember the question words to do so! We hope that this article helps you to learn Russian language! Good luck with it and feel free to ask your questions in comments!