Korean Question Words || Learn About 왜, 어떻게, 누구 & More

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Home A1 Asking questions in Korean

KOREAN QUESTION WORDS

As in English, Korean language has two kinds of questions:

Questions to get information regarding who / when / where / what / how / why / which
Questions to get ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answers

WH-QUESTION WORDS

Here are the Korean question words, let’s start with who, when and where first.

WHO	WHEN	WHERE
누구 / 누가	언제	어디
누가 선생님이에요?/선생님이 누구에요?	집에 언제 갈래?/ 언제 집에 갈래?	어디서 식사할래요?/ 식사 어디서 할래요?
Who is the teacher?	When do you want to go home?	Where would you like to eat?

Now for what, how, why in Korean:

WHAT	HOW	WHY
무엇/뭐	어떻게	왜
뭐 보고 있어요?	어떻게 지내요?	왜 밥을 먹지 않았니?
What are you watching?	How are you?	Why didn’t you eat your meal?

Now for what, how, why in Korean:

WHICH	HOW MANY	HOW MUCH/FAR
어떤 것	몇	얼만큼 / 어느정도
어떤 것이 더 맛있어요?	몇 시에요? What time is it?	물은 얼만큼 있어요? How much water do you have?
Which one tastes better?	몇 개에요? How many things are there?	어느정도 비가와요? How much is it raining?
	몇 명이에요? How many people are there?

YES / NO QUESTIONS

Asking questions for yes/no answer is very simple in Korean, because the structure is the same as the declarative sentence.

You simply need to add a question mark (for writing) or raise your tone (for speaking) at the end of the question.

Here are a few examples:

EXAMPLE 1	EXAMPLE 2
영화를 좋아해요. / 영화를 좋아해요?	배 고파요. / 배 고파요?
I like movies / Do you like movies?	I am hungry / Are you hungry?

Also notice that subject ‘you’ in the question can be omitted when the person you are talking to is the subject of the sentence.

This is similar to how the subject ‘I’ can be omitted when you are talking about yourself.

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FAQs

How do you say Why in Korean?

Why in Korean is 왜 (wae).

Here’s an example:

왜 밥을 먹지 않았니?

Why didn’t you eat your meal?

How do you say Where in Korean?

Where in Korean is 어디 (eodi).

Here’s a sentence example:

어디서 식사할래요?/ 식사 어디서 할래요?

Where would you like to eat?

How do you say Who in Korean?

Who in Korean is 누구 (nugu) or 누가 (nuga).

Here is a sentence example:

누가 선생님이에요?/선생님이 누구에요?

Who is the teacher?

How do you say What in Korean?

What in Korean is 무엇 (mu-eot) or 뭐 (mwo).

You use it like this:

뭐 보고 있어요?

What are you watching?

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