Duo Russian Grammar

19) Questions

Where

Russian makes a distinction between being somewhere (тут/здесь, там) , going there (сюда, туда) and coming from there (отсюда, оттуда)—so naturally question words follow suit:

  • Где? = Where (at)?
  • Куда? = Where to?
  • Откуда? = Where from?

What or what are you?

Russian uses «Кто»(who) when asking about identity and occupation and «Что» is used for objects rather than people. Since Russian nouns have cases, кто and что also change depending on their role in the implied sentence. As you will discover a little bit further down the tree, «Кто» behaves rather like a masculine adjective.

CASE What Who Whose
Nom. что кто чей, чьё, чья ,чьи
Gen. чего́ кого́ чьего́, чьего́, чье́й, чьих
Acc. что кого Gen/Nom; «чью» for Fem.
Prep чём ком чьём, чьём, чьей, чьих

Почему? and Зачем?

  • Почему is used when asking a question about a cause of some event or action. It is a question that looks back at the past.
  • Зачем starts a question about the purpose of some action or some event that can have one. It is a question that looks towards a desired future.

In a few regions of Russia (Tatarstan, for example) people may use зачем for both questions if their usage of Russian is influenced by a major local language that makes no distinction between the two. In Standard Russian these are two clearly separate entities.

Levels

  1. 1) Alphabet 1
  2. 2) Basics 1
  3. 3) Phrases 1
  4. 4) Единственное число
  5. 5) Name and polite "You"
  6. 6) Plurals
  7. 7) Where is it?
  8. 8) Animals 1
  9. 9) Genitive Case - 1
  10. 10) Possessive Modifiers 1
  11. 11) Partitive
  12. 12) Accusative Case: the direct object
  13. 13) Verbs Present 1
  14. 14) Infinitive, Likes and Dislikes
  15. 15) Food
  16. 16) Adjectives Introduction
  17. 17) Conjunctions
  18. 18) There is
  19. 19) Questions
  20. 20) People 1
  21. 21) Around you
  22. 22) Prepositions and Places
  23. 23) Verbs Present 2
  24. 24) Time and Numbers
  25. 25) Family
  26. 26) People 1
  27. 27) Weather and Nature
  28. 28) Sport
  29. 29) Adjectives 1
  30. 30) Past & Infinitive
  31. 31) VLAD
  32. 32) Dative and Plurals
  33. 33) Reported speech
  34. 34) Perfective Verbs
  35. 35) I
  36. 36) Body and Health
  37. 37) Genitive Plural
  38. 38) Adjectives 2
  39. 39) Short and Long
  40. 40) Perfective verbs
  41. 41) Countries and Places
  42. 42) House
  43. 43) Reflexive
  44. 44) Time expressions 2
  45. 45) Imperative and Adverbs
  46. 46) Образовние
  47. 47) City and People
  48. 48) Imperative2
  49. 49) That Which
  50. 50) Technics
  51. 51) Future Simple
  52. 52) Being Instrumental
  53. 53) Placing Objects
  54. 54) Kitchen and Food
  55. 55) Speaking
  56. 56) Subjunctive
  57. 57) Compound Future
  58. 58) Prefixed Verbs of Motion
  59. 59) Arts & Entertainment
  60. 60) Together
  61. 61) Numbers 2
  62. 62) Adjectives 3
  63. 63) Plans
  64. 64) Prepositions 2
  65. 65) The Same
  66. 66) Fleeting Vowels
  67. 67) Measure
  68. 68) Business
  69. 69) Morphology
  70. 70) History & Fantasy
  71. 71) Participles
  72. 72) Computers & Internet
  73. 73) Adverbial Participles
  74. 74) Science
  75. 75) Politics
  76. 76) Spiritual
  77. 77) Some Spoken Patterns
  78. 78) Nothing Left
  79. 79) Crime and Justice