か in Japanese, the Particle that Asks you to Choose
か is a Japanese particle that presents a choice between different alternatives. Its closest translation from English to Japanese is the word or. So, If I want to say A or B using か in Japanese I would say AかBか or AかB. This is a useful particle to know so let’s check out more.
INDEX
How to use か in Japanese
Imagine that you are hungry. You open the refrigerator and see what there is. You then narrow down your choices to fish or meat. So, at this point, you have your two choices and have enough information to make a sentence with か.
https://japaneseuniverse.com/2024/02/18/pac-man-in-japaneseconcepts-behind-development-to-global-icon/Anytime you want to talk about different possibilities, just stick か to the end of your choices. か tells you that the word before it is one of those choices. So, now we can take our scenario above and shape it into a Japanese sentence.
私は魚か肉かを食べる
I will eat fish or meat
Ta-da!
The phrase sitting above is fine. But, normally you can chop off the last か.
私は魚か肉を食べる
I will eat fish or meat
See? The meaning is the same but slightly more compact.
か in Japanese also works with phrases
か in Japanese can also present you with the choice between two phrases. All you need to do is add か after the end of a sentence and link it with another sentence.
私は魚を食べるか、肉を食べる
I am going to eat fish, or I am going to eat meat
There, we have a fresh new sentence ready for consumption. Our sentence may be longer and possibly more intimidating but essentially it means the same thing as our first sentence. The only difference is that we are being redundant by saying the same verb twice.
However, if we pull out a brand new sentence with a second verb, things get more interesting. Now, it is obvious that か presents a choice between two whole phrases instead of two nouns.
魚を食べるか、冷蔵庫にしまっておいて
eat the fish or put it away in the fridge
How か transforms Question Words
Great! So now we know how か presents you with choices by connecting words and phrases. But that’s not all it can do.
There is another fun effect that it has on question words. Anytime you combine the Japanese words for who, what, when, where, and how with か you get someone, something, somewhere, or somehow.
何かを食べたい
I want to eat something
誰かが何かを食べている
someone is eating something
If we pluck か out of these sentences then we get questions instead.
何を食べたい？
what do you want to eat?
誰が何を食べている？
who is eating what
