Esperanto · Chapter 13 · Lesson 8 · Grammar primer
Questions: cxu, the ki- words and how to answer
Cxu turns any statement into a question with no inversion, the ki- words front and the sentence stays put, and answering cxu ne questions has one rule worth learning properly.
The short version
Ĉu is the question mark you say out loud
One word at the front turns any statement into a yes/no question and nothing else moves: vi parolas Esperanton becomes ĉu vi parolas Esperanton? No inversion, no auxiliary do, no exceptions in any tense. The discipline is resisting the English instinct, because parolas vi Esperanton? is not stylistically odd but structurally wrong. And ĉu never shares a direct question with a ki- word: the ki- word already IS the question.
Ĉu la kafo estas varma?
Jes answers the fact, not the phrasing
Ask ĉu vi ne venos? and jes means I AM coming, ne means I am not: Esperanto ignores the question's negative wrapping and answers the state of the world. English agrees, so anglophones coast, but Japanese and others run the opposite convention, which makes a one-syllable answer a coin toss in an international language. Answer with a clause instead. Two extra words, zero missed dinners. The all-purpose tag, meanwhile, is ĉu ne?, which never changes form.
Ĉu vi ne venos? - Jes, mi venos!
That's the gist. The full article goes deeper - more examples, the edge cases, the why - and the practice below scores like a vocabulary session and earns the same XP.
Read the full article · 6 min readPractice
Practise this lesson
20-question session
One question at a time, mixed across the exercises in this lesson. Miss one and it comes back round before the end.
Esperanto · Free printables
Worksheets for this lesson
Worksheets with answer keys built in. Open any one to view, print or save.
Free for members
The printable worksheets, infographics and PDFs are free with an account. Start a free week and download as many as you like.
Start your free weekLesson 8 of 22 in this chapter