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Russian Interrogative Words

Russian grammar --> Interrogative words

Interrogative pronouns and adverbs are words used to form different kinds of questions. The most frequently used interrogative words in Russian are:

Pronouns кто, что

As a rule, pronouns кто and что are used to form questions about an animate (кто) or an inanimate (что) referent. These pronouns do not reflect gender or number of their referents. These pronouns require their predicates to agree in singular. As for gender agreement, the predicate of the pronoun кто must agree in masculine gender, and the predicate of the pronoun что must be in neuter.

Depending on the context, the pronoun что may be used to ask questions about animate referents (epecially, about animals):

Pronouns кто and что occur in all six cases. According to the general rule of the animate/inanimate declensions, the pronoun кто has the same forms for the accusative and genitive cases; the pronoun что has the same forms for the nominative and accusative cases.

Case	Кто	Что
Nominative	кто	что
Genitive	кого	чего
Dative	кому	чему
Accusative	кого	что
Instrumental	кем	чем
Prepositional	ком	чём

Pronoun какой

Какой is generally used to ask questions about a quality of person or thing and can be translated as "what kind of" or "which".

This pronoun agrees in gender, number and case of the noun it refers to. The following table represents the declensions of the pronoun какой.

Case	Singular			Plural
	masculine	feminine	neuter
Nominative	какой	какая	какое	какие
Genitive	какого	какой	какого	каких
Dative	какому	какой	какому	каким
Accusative	Nom/Gen	какую	какое	Nom/Gen
Instrumental	каким	какой	каким	какими
Prepositional	каком	какой	каком	каких

Adverbs где, когда, куда, откуда, сколько

Russian interrogative adverbs когда when, где where, куда where to, откуда where from, как how , сколько how much/how many are indeclinable words. Below, you can see examples of questions with these interrogative adverbs.