Who do you think you are? How to use “Who(だれ)” in Japanese : How to use「誰だれ」Dare in Japanese to ask about “Who(だれ)”. Through explanation, examples and context, we are going to learn how to use the question word “Dare” like a Japanese pro.
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Who do you think you are? How to use “Who(だれ)” in Japanese
Who are you? A very deep, yet profound question that you may have asked yourself from time to time. Or maybe you’ve come across a strange man or woman who wasn’t supposed who you didn’t know “Who is that?” Or maybe even your excited to head to a party and want to know ahead of time “who” is coming. Well today we are going to learn to ask all of these types of questions in Japanese. So sit back, relax and get ready to dive into today’s online Japanese lesson.
What, who, when, how, where and why are the foundation for the majority of questions when it comes to language learning. Odds are, if you’re reading this blog you are probably either at the beginning of your Japanese journey or just tightening up you skills on the basics. Either way, we are sure you are going to learn a lot today about the word “だれ” WHO. So as always guys, we encourage you to make notes as you go along the article as this will help a lot with the learning process.
The basics of the structure:“Who(だれ)” in Japanese
Let’s start with a really simple sentence to help us grass the basics of the structure:
それはだれですか
Sore wa dare desu ka
Who is that?
A fairly simple sentence structure here, did you grasp the concept?. You can swap “sore” with words such as “kore” “anata” and even specific names. This will allow you to create questions such as “who is this?” “who are you?” and “who is (name)”.
Lets try now to expand on this and evolve it into a more complex sentence structure.
これはだれのぼおしですか。
kore wa dare no booshi desu ka.
Whose hat is this?
In this example we are adding in the possessive particle “の” this creates the pattern of “who does this belong to” or “whose”. Let’s have a look at another example to solidify our understanding.
それはだれのかばんですか
kore wa dare no kaban desu ka.
Whose bag is this?
This is a really great structure to learn and practice as it is bound to come in extremely useful in your continuing studies.
Should we stop there? No, no, no. We have so much more we can do with “Who(だれ)” you are going to love it. Let’s move on to the next step in our dare journey.
だれがこれを壊したのか知っていますか。
Dare ga kore o kowashita no ka shitte imasuka.
Do you know who broke this?
Here the speaker is asking if the listener knows who broke the item in questions. What a clutz! Ga is used to mark the subject the sentence and is often used after nani, dare and itsu.
Lets jump into another example to deepen our understanding.
あそでにたべているひとはだれですか
Asoko de tabete iru hito wa dare desu ka
Who is that person eating over there?
This is a really interesting sentence pattern as it first describes what the person is doing and then asks who that is. If you’re new to learning Japanese this is an integral sentence structure to get used to using. You use the continuous ている pattern and then add a noun to the end to describe what that noun is doing. Coupling this with “dare” is an awesome way to describe in more detail the person you want to know about.
Wait guys, before you go, we have a little bonus bite of information for you. You are going to love this!
Adding か or も to だれ(Who):“Who(だれ)” in Japanese
Adding か or も to だれ can change “Who(だれ)” to “someone” and “no one” Let’s have a look at some examples of this set up in action.
だれかがいるみたいです。
Dareka ga iru mitai desu.
Someone seems to be there.
As you can see, だれか, is referring to “someone”. You use dareka in a situation where the verbs positive. However with だれも, you must use the negative. Take a look at the example below to see it in action.
だれもいないみたいです。
Dareka iru mitai desu.
There seems to be no one there.
These are really important to remember as this grammar rule also transfer across to Nani and itsu too. We do have some other articles on this that you can check out too. Make sure to write out many practice sentences with these as well
Okay everyone, that brings us to the end of today’s online Japanese lesson. We really hope that you enjoyed learning about だれ today with us. It’s really important to get a good foundation with these question words as they are super super useful when asking basic questions and can lead nicely into more complex patterns. Have a great day everyone, until next time, またね。
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