Russian Question Words: кто, что, где, когда, почему
By Michael McGettrickUpdated 27 September 2026
Russian question words are the easy part of Russian, right up until you ask who you saw. Then turns into , and a learner who had filed question words as vocabulary finds out they belong to the case system too.
The good news first: asking a question in Russian is simpler than asking one in English. The rest of this page is the part the phrasebooks skip.
The question words, in one table
| Russian | transliteration | English |
|---|---|---|
| kto | who |
| chto (said shto) | what |
| gde | where (at) |
| kuda | where (to) |
| otkuda | where from |
| kogda | when |
| pochemu | why (for what reason) |
| zachem | why (for what purpose) |
| kak | how |
| skolko | how much, how many |
| kakoy | which, what kind of |
| kotoryy | which (one in a sequence) |
Twelve rows, and three of them are there because English is doing two jobs with one word. English has one where and one why. Russian has three and two. That is not Russian being fussy; it is Russian making you say something English leaves to context.
Note the pronunciation of : it is written with a ch and said with an sh, shto. It is one of the handful of spellings Russian never updated, and you will hear it a hundred times a day.
How a Russian question is built
Put the question word at the front. Leave everything else alone.
?(Gde ty rabotayesh?) - Where do you work?
?(Chto ty delayesh?) - What are you doing?
?(Kogda ty budesh doma?) - When will you be home?
Compare the English. Where do you work needs the helper do and swaps the subject behind it. Russian has neither: no helper verb, no inversion. Word for word, the first line is where you work. You already know how to say you work, so you already know how to ask where.
A noun subject often slides behind the verb, because Russian likes new information last (the word order article has the full logic), but nothing forces it:
?- Where does your brother work?
?- When is dad coming?
And because быть vanishes in the present, a question about where something is can have no verb at all: ? is where mum?, and it is complete.
Yes-or-no questions need no word at all
This is the part English speakers do not believe until they hear it. A yes-or-no question in Russian is usually just the statement, said differently.
.- You are at home.
?- Are you at home?
Same words, same order. The voice rises sharply on the word being asked about, then drops. Put the rise on and you are asking whether it is you who is at home; put it on and you are asking whether you are at home rather than somewhere else.
There is a written particle, , which marks a yes-or-no question more formally: ? (Do you know?). In everyday speech you will mostly meet it in reported questions: Я , (I do not know whether he is at home). Recognise it; do not reach for it.
Who and what have six cases
Here is what the phrasebook leaves out. and are pronouns, and like every Russian pronoun they change for case. If you want to ask whom did you see, to whom did you say it or what are you afraid of, you need the right form.
| case | who | what | example |
|---|---|---|---|
| nominative | | | ? Who is that? |
| accusative | | | ? Who do you see? |
| genitive | | | ? What are you afraid of? |
| dative | | | ? Who did you tell? |
| instrumental | | | С ? Who are you talking to? |
| prepositional | о | о | О ? What are you thinking about? |
Three things are worth noticing.
First, is treated as a living thing and as an object, so they split in the accusative exactly the way nouns do: the animate copies its genitive, the inanimate copies its nominative. That is the same animate rule that makes do two jobs, covered in the accusative article.
Second, and end in -ого and -ому, the same endings masculine adjectives take in the genitive and dative. You are rehearsing a pattern you will need for every adjective in the language. And, as with every -ого ending, the г is said as a v: is kavo.
Third, the case is chosen by the verb or preposition, not by the question. (to be afraid) takes the genitive, so the question is ? and the answer is in the genitive too. Work out what case the answer would be in, and put the question word in the same case.
Where, where to and where from
This is the distinction that catches learners longest, because English stopped making it centuries ago.
| question | asks about | answer | example |
|---|---|---|---|
| location | | ? Where are you? |
| destination | | ? Where are you going? |
| origin | | ? Where are you from? |
Look at the answer column. Russian has a matching set of place words for each question: (here) against (to here) against (from here). It is one system, three ways, and once you see it the question and the answer lock together.
It also connects straight to the cases. is answered with в or plus the prepositional, with в or plus the accusative. The question word tells you in advance which case the answer will need.
To ask the destination of a verb of going, the word is : ? ? can only mean whereabouts you are while walking, which is not what a learner usually wants to ask. The verbs of motion article is where that pairing earns its keep.
Why and what for
asks for a cause. asks for a purpose. English lumps both into why.
?- Why are you not asleep? (what is causing it)
?- What did you do that for? (what were you trying to achieve)
The answers match: (because) for , (in order to) for . There is also a tonal difference worth knowing before you use it. asked about something already done can sound like a reproach, the Russian equivalent of what on earth for. is the neutral default, and if you are unsure, use it.
Which, what kind and how many
means which or what kind of, and it is an adjective, so it agrees with its noun: (which house), (which book), (which place), (which questions). It takes every case an adjective takes.
also means which, but of one in a sequence. Its most useful appearance is the fixed phrase ? (What time is it?), literally which hour.
asks how much or how many, and it takes the genitive, the same way numbers from five up do: у ? (How much money do you have?). The everyday price question is ?
Чей means whose and agrees like an adjective too (чей, чья, чьё, чьи), so whose book is чья . It is less common than the others and can wait.
The verb after кто and что
A small rule with large consequences. takes a masculine singular verb, whoever the answer turns out to be. takes a neuter singular one.
?- Who said that? (masculine past, even if a woman said it)
?- Who lives here? (singular, even for a whole family)
?- What happened? (neuter past)
? is one of the first things you will hear in any Russian film. The -о before the reflexive -сь is the neuter past ending, and it is neuter because is.
Mistakes English speakers make
Using with a verb of going. To ask where someone is going, wants a destination: ? ? asks only whereabouts they are on the way.
Leaving in the nominative. Who did you see is not ?; would be the one doing the seeing. It must be ?, because the person is the object.
Stranding the preposition. English happily says who are you talking to? with the preposition at the end. Russian never does: the preposition goes in front of the question word, С ?, О ?
Adding an English-style inversion. There is nothing to invert. Moving the verb in front of does not make a question more of a question; it just sounds odd.
Answering with . A cause answers , a purpose answers . Mixing them sounds like answering the wrong question, because it is.
What to do next
Learn the twelve words in the first table as a set, then learn and down all six cases the way you would learn the pronoun я: they will be in every other conversation you have. The quickest way to make them stick is to ask questions about the stories in the Russian course as you read, out loud, and answer them in the right case.