Eight words cover every question you will need. All but one begin with क, which makes them easy to hold as a set. Note that क्या has two jobs: at the start of a sentence it marks a yes-no question, and elsewhere it means what.

This is the rule that matters. The question word occupies the slot the answer would occupy.

English moves the question word to the front — ‘what is your name’. Hindi keeps normal word order and substitutes the question word where the answer goes, giving your name what is. Fronting it produces a sentence that is comprehensible but immediately marks you as translating from English.

There is one useful exception. Moving a question word to the front is grammatical in Hindi when you want emphasis, in the way English stresses a word with the voice. क्यों तुमने ऐसा किया? puts weight on the why, suggesting reproach or genuine surprise, where तुमने ऐसा क्यों किया? is a neutral enquiry. Learners should stick to the neutral order until the emphatic version is a deliberate choice rather than an accident of English habit.

Only two question words inflect: कितना and कौन सा, both of which end in आ and follow the standard adjective pattern. So it is कितनी चीनी but कितना पानी, and कौन सी किताब but कौन सा घर. Everything else is frozen.

There are also oblique forms. कौन becomes किस before a postposition — किसका (whose), किसको (to whom), किससे (from whom). Likewise क्या becomes किस, giving किस लिए (for what).

Two ways to ask a yes-no question: add क्या at the front, or simply raise your intonation. Between friends the rising tone is far more common. Adding ना to the end turns a statement into a gentle check that invites agreement, and it is used constantly.

Indirect questions follow a different pattern that catches people out. English turns do you know where he is into a statement order, but Hindi keeps the question word in place and adds कि — मुझे नहीं पता कि वह कहाँ है. The कहाँ stays exactly where it would sit in a direct question, so there is no reordering to remember, which makes this one of the rare areas where Hindi is simpler than English.

क्यों and कहाँ are both nasalised and the nasal is not optional — dropping it flattens the word. क्या opens with a क्य cluster, blended into one motion rather than two syllables. कौन uses the औ diphthong. And question-word questions fall in pitch at the end, while yes-no questions rise, exactly as in English.

• Moving the question word to the front out of English habit.
• Forgetting that कितना and कौन सा agree with gender.
• Using कौन instead of किस before a postposition.
• Missing the nasal in क्यों and कहाँ.
• Using क्या twice in one sentence when only one is needed.

1. Ask eight questions, one with each question word.
2. Make कितना agree with four different nouns.
3. Convert five statements into yes-no questions both ways.
4. Use किसका, किसको and किससे in three sentences.
5. Add ना as a tag to four statements.