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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.

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.

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.