This, that and question words

English has "this" and "that"; Japanese has three distances and a question, and the same four beginnings run through a whole family of words. こ is near the speaker, そ near the listener, あ far from both, and ど asks which: これ, それ, あれ, どれ for things, ここ, そこ, あそこ, どこ for places. Learn one row and you have learnt the pattern of all of them. Question words stay where the answer would stand, so the word order does not change — the sentence simply ends in か.