A1 · Questions and negation
Asking a question
The voice goes up and the sentence stays as it is.
A yes-or-no question is made by intonation alone: Tens tempo? Nothing moves and no auxiliary appears. For an English speaker this is less a rule than a habit to stop: « do you have », « are you coming », « did she say » all have a word in front that has no business here.
A question word goes first: Onde fica a estação?, Quando chegas?, Como te chamas? — and again nothing follows it except the ordinary sentence.
In conversation é que is often slipped in: onde é que fica a estação? It means nothing whatsoever and makes the question run more smoothly; in Portugal it is constant. Curiously it occupies exactly the position where English puts « do », and does exactly as little.
A tag question is hung on the end: Vens amanhã, não vens? — the Portuguese « aren't you? ». Note that it repeats the verb, as the English tag does, rather than using one fixed word.
Die Form
| Do you have time? | Tens tempo? |
| Where is the station? | Onde fica a estação? |
| Where is it, then? | Onde é que fica? |
| What is your name? | Como te chamas? |
| How much is it? | Quanto custa? |
| You are coming, aren't you? | Vens, não vens? |
Die Regeln im Einzelnen
The word order stays as it is in a statement.
Falas português?Do you speak Portuguese?
The question word goes first.
Quando chegas?When do you arrive?
é que is a filler with no meaning.
O que é que fazes?What are you doing?
The tag question is hung on the end.
Está frio, não está?It is cold, isn't it?
Woran man es erkennt
- onde
- quando
- como
- quem
- é que
Beispielsätze
Onde é que moras?Where do you live, then?
Quantos anos tens?How old are you?
Podes ajudar-me?Can you help me?
Vens connosco, não vens?You are coming with us, aren't you?
Die typisch deutsche Falle
Aufgepasst
Moving the subject is the commonest mistake of the first month, and it comes from two directions at once: English inverts in questions, and so does German. Tens tu tempo? is understood and nobody says it — the subject pronoun is hardly ever there in the first place, and when it is, it stands in front of the verb like everywhere else. The test is simple: if the question has more moving parts than the statement, something has gone in that should not be there.
Only the voice goes up.
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