This document discusses question formation in Hebrew. It begins by explaining that most Hebrew questions use interrogative pronouns like who, what, when, etc. at the beginning of the sentence. It then focuses on questions using the demonstrative pronouns "zeh" and "zot", which mean "this", such as "what is this?". Gender does not need to be considered for this question. Other question words and constructions covered include "mi" meaning "who", places of origin with "from", and questions starting with prepositions.

1. Questions
In this lesson we will learn all about asking questions in
Hebrew.

2. Questions
Most questions in Hebrew use an interrogative pronoun.
These pronouns are the words who? What? When? Where?
Etc.
Hebrew, like English usually places these words at the
beginning of a sentence.
Also like English, these words are not dependent on gender.
They are always the same.
The interrogative pronouns will be introduced in this lesson.

3. Demonstrative Pronouns
There are however some question words that are a bit
different. These words will be the subject of this lesson.
If you recall from lesson 14, we learned about the
demonstrative pronouns זה and זאת meaning ‘this’. One of
the most common questions in Hebrew is ‘What is this?’ and
the demonstrative pronoun is used to form this construction.
In Hebrew, normally you would construct a sentence based
on gender, but this question is independent of gender. You
use the question word מה (ma) meaning what in conjunction
with the word .זה

4. Demonstrative Pronouns
To ask the question ‘what is this?’ you would say ? מה זה
regardless of whether the object you are referring to is
masculine or feminine. This is because if you are asking
what it is, you probably don’t know the gender either.
The answer to this question will tell you what gender the
object is
זה תות שדה (it is a strawberry) mas because of זה
זאת פסטה (it is pasta) feminine because of זאת

5. Demonstrative Pronouns
On the other hand, if you are asking the question ‘who is
this?’ then the gender must match the person you are
referring to. You should know if the person you are asking
about is male or female.
The question word מי (mi) meaning who is used in this
construction.
מי זה?
מי זאת?
The answers are the same as for ‘what is it?’
זאת שרה (this is Sarah)
זה דוד (this is David)

6. Where are you from?
The question ‘Where are you from?’ uses the question word
איפה meaning ‘where’ or ‘where from’. Just follow this
question word with the appropriate pronoun:
איפה אתה? (Where are you(m) from?)
איפה הוא? (Where is he from?)
איפה אנחנו? (Where are we from?)
Remember that the word ‘is’ does not exist in Hebrew.
The answer is simply a pronoun + מ + a place
אני מאנגליה (I am from England)
Remember that מ normally has the (i) sound but since the
next letter in England is a guttural, It takes the (e) sound.

7. Which/ What?
The question word ‘which?’ is a bit different than the other
question words in this lesson. It is dependent on the noun that
follows it for gender and number. The three forms of this
question word are as follows:
איזה (masculine singular)
איזו (feminine singular)
אילו (plural)
Simply determine the gender and number of the noun and add the
appropriate word from the list above to form a proper question.
The masculine singular form is sometimes used regardless of the
gender and number of the noun in colloquial Hebrew.

8. Prepositions in Questions
As we mentioned before, questions usually begin with a
question word. Sometimes however you may see a preposition
as the first word in a question. We do this in English too
In what house?
To whom is he speaking?
Any preposition can function this way. Some examples are ,על
מ… ,ב… , and even the definite marker את . Remember that
even with questions, it is necessary to use the definite marker.
Usually you only use it when referring to people and not objects
when asking a question though.
If a question starts with a preposition, the answer will contain
that same preposition.

9. Prepositions in Questions
Here is an example to illustrate this.
באיזה בית אתה? (IN which house are you?)
אני בבית הכחול (I am IN the blue house.)
למי אתה כותב? (To whom are you writing?)
אני כותב לדוד (I am writing to David.)

10. Questions
You can also form a question by simply changing the inflection of
your voice. We do this in English as well. Think of the difference in
pronunciation in the following statement and question:
This is your dog.
This is your dog?
The last syllable is slightly raised indicating that the statement is a
question.
There are more aspects of questions, but we will examine those in
another lesson.