Simple Questions

Korean question words follow the same grammatical position as their English equivalents but combine with different question endings. 누구 (who), 어디 (where), 뭐 (what, casual) / 무엇 (what, formal), 언제 (when), 왜 (why), 어떻게 (how), 얼마 (how much). In polite speech, all of these typically appear in sentences ending with -아요/어요 or -이에요/예요 with a rising intonation marking the question.

A key difference from English: Korean does not require subject-verb inversion to form questions. 'You are a student' is 학생이에요, and 'are you a student?' is also 학생이에요? — the only difference is the intonation. Even with question words, the word order stays subject-object-verb. 'Where are you going?' is 어디 가요? not 'go you where?'. This is identical to Japanese in structure, so Japanese speakers can build questions in Korean almost by reflex.