Setsuna747
What are the most universal ways to the basic questions, such as:
Who? What? When? Why? Where? How? and How long?
"Who" is だれ. Note, though, that when you ask "Who is it?" make sure to use "ですか" or "だ" because just だれか is used within sentences to mean "someone." E.g., "Is someone here?"
だれかいますか。
"What" is なに＝何. The same thing applies to this as to だれ. 何か used within a sentence means something, e.g.: "Is something here?"
何かありますか。
"When" is いつ. Same thing as for the last two: いつか means sometime. E.g., "Want to go sometime?"
いつか行きませんか。
"Why" can be either どうして or なぜ. なぜ follows the same rule as the last three, thus なぜか means "for some reason." E.g., "For some reason, they banned me." 私は
なぜか禁止されました。
”Where" is どこ. Again, same rule here. どこか means "Somewhere." E.g., "There should be a pencil in this box somewhere." この箱の中に鉛筆が
どこかあるはずです。
"How" is most commonly どうやって. However, the "somehow" is an exception from the previous examples. "Somehow" is 何とか. E.g., "Somehow, I'll finish this work up tonight."
何とか今夜この仕事を仕上げる。
As far as "how long," if you're talking about time, I think you just have to use a full sentence: "How much time did it take?" 何時間かかりましたか。 (Nanjikan kakarimashita ka?)
If you're talking about units of measurement, like "How wide is this?" or "How much is this?" then you can use いくつ (for a specific number of finite items) or いくら (for other terms of measurement). E.g. "How many apples do you have?" りんごが
いくつありますか。 "How much does this apple cost?"このりんごは
いくらですか。
Hope that helps! ^_^
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