German 路 Chapter 3 路 Lesson 14 路 Grammar primer

Question words: wer, was, wo, wann, warum

Five short words and the verb jumps to the front. Enough to ask for directions, a name and an explanation.

The short version

Wer means who, not where

Wer sounds like English where and means who. Wo is where, and was is what. Three of the six core question words look like English words with a different meaning, and a tired ear picks the English one. Drill Wer ist das? against Wo ist das? until the reflex flips.

Wer ist das? Wo ist das?

Who is that? Where is that?

Where to and where from have their own words

English asks where and tacks on to or from. German builds the direction in: wo for a position, wohin for a destination, woher for an origin. Wo gehst du? is understood but sounds wrong, because wo never asks about movement.

Woher kommst du? Wohin gehst du?

Where are you from? Where are you going?

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.

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Practice

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10-question session

One question at a time, mixed across the exercises in this lesson. Miss one and it comes back round before the end. There are 21 in all: practise more afterwards if you want them.

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Lesson 14 of 21 in this chapter

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