Japanese Lesson 59: Making Questions with ～ます form -- 英語の質問の作り方

In Lessons 54 and 55 we learned how to use the ～ます form for Japanese verbs. This is the verb form you should use when speaking to people you do not know very well and for speaking in public situations like at the bank, post office, at a shop, etc.

Now, in this lesson we will learn how to make questions using the ～ます form.

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We learned that the regular form form changes in 3 ways: 1. The dictionary form, 2. The past form, and 3. The continuous form. For example, let's look at the word "to talk", which is 話す（はなす）in Japanese.

Dictionary form  → Past form  → Continuous form

Regular form
話す　→　話した　→　話している

Masu form
話します　→　話した　→　話しています

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With the Regular form, you can simply put a question mark after the verb, or ad the word "no" 「の」to make a question. For example:

後で彼と話す？
あと　で　かれ　と　はなす？
Are you going to talk to him later?

後で彼と話すの？
あと　で　かれ　と　はなす　の？
You're going to talk to him later?

With the Masu form, you only need to ad the word "ka" 「か」to make a question. Here are some examples:

Dictionary Masu form
後で彼と話しますか？
あと　で　かれ　と　はなします　か？
Are you going to talk to him later?

Past form
昨日、彼と話しましたか？
きのう　かれ　と　はなしました　か？
Did you talk to him yesterday?

Continuous form
最近彼と話していますか？
さいきん　かれ　と　はなしています　か？
Have you been talking to him recently?