Questions
Two mechanisms, and neither moves anything.
Yes/no: put क्या at the front
आप आएँगे — you will come. क्या आप आएँगे? — will you come?
क्या kyaa at the start of a sentence is a question marker and means nothing itself. Word order does not change. In speech it is often dropped and the rising tone carries it.
Question words: leave them where the answer goes
| क्या | what |
| कौन | who |
| कहाँ | where |
| कब | when |
| क्यों | why |
| कैसे | how |
| कितना | how much |
| कौन सा | which |
तुम कहाँ जा रहे हो? — where are you going? The question word sits in the slot the answer would occupy, and the verb still comes last.
The k / y / v pattern
Every question word starts with क and has matching relatives:
| question | near | far |
|---|---|---|
| कहाँ where | यहाँ here | वहाँ there |
| कैसा how | ऐसा like this | वैसा like that |
| कितना how much | इतना this much | उतना that much |
| कब when | अब now | तब then |
Learn one row and you have learnt the shape of all of them.
क्या twice
क्या is both the question marker and the word for "what", which produces sentences with two of them: क्या तुमने क्या कहा? Speakers avoid this by dropping the first.
The tag
है ना? — "is it not?" — covers every English tag question, and collapses to ना? in speech.
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