Now we are going to talk about WH questions. WH questions are questions in
which we are looking for some missing information.
The first WH word that we are going to talk about is "چه". That means what, and
it's the most common one. Because it's used in all languages, and in Farsi, like
others, a lot. So in order to form a question with "چه" and other
interrogative words in Farsi, you don't need any change in word order as opposed
to English where you change the word order, in order to form a question. So in
order to form a question, you just need this "چه" in the place of
missing information. If it's an object or it's in the adverb of time or something
like that. So let's look at some examples:
دیروز چه خوردی؟
Yesterday, what, you ate. The point is that you should try to put "چه" as close to
the verb as possible. So here "چه" is very close to the verb, because it's in the
place of missing information, which is the object of this sentence. And the
answer is just giving the object for this sentence.
دیروز پیتزا خوردم.
I ate pizza. It's object. Another example:
وقتی با آنها بودی، چه کردی؟
Again putting "چه" as close to this verb as possible. When, with them, you
were, what you did. So it's saying "when you were with them, what did you do?" And
the answer again is just an object. You just can say "we watched a movie."
ما فیلم دیدیم
ما غذا خوردیم
Just specifying what you did.
Putting the missing information in the place of the "چه" word.
Sometimes "چه' is for specifying some words. For example, your
friends have watched a movie. You know what they have done, but you want to know
as specifically what movie they have watched. So in those cases, you just put
the "چه" before that noun and you ask others to specify that noun for you.
Let's look at an example:
در تهران چه فیلمی دیدند؟
In Tehran, what movie did they watch, or did they
see? Here, I want to specify the movie they have watched. So I put "چه"
just before that noun. However, it is important to know any noun after "چه",
any noun, they get a "ی" and it's pronounced "ee"." Like here, film is the word
for film and then you say "چه فیلمی". Let's look at another example:
در رستوران چه غذایی خوردند؟
In restaurant, what food did they eat? So there's no changing in word
order, and we just put "چه" before the noun we want to specify and as I said,
any noun after "چه" gets "ی", and it's pronounced "ee." Here, I put another "ی" and
it's the euphonic "ی". Because the word ends in a long vowel and in order
to put another vowel after it, we need a a consonant here. "ی" in order
to intervene and make pronunciation easier. There is another point about
the "چه" and it's related to the difference between "چه" in spoken Farsi and
in written Farsi. In spoken Farsi, "چه" is pronounced "چی" and when we want
to say "what did you eat," we say
چی خوردی؟
Instead of saying "چه خوردی". Let me write it for you:
So "چه" in written form, but "چی" in spoken Farsi. Whenever we want
to use the "چه" in spoken, we say "چی".
For example, "چه خوردی". What did you eat? But whenever we use "چی", if there is a
noun after "چه", for example, we don't say "چی کتای خواندی؟". What book did you
read? Because there is a noun after "چی", it's wrong. We should use "چه". But if
there is no noun after "چه" in
spoken Farsi, we always used "چی". Also, when in spoken Farsi
we want to use a "چه" with the verb second, third person, the verb to be asked,
we just say "چیه".
So "چه است"
what is. In spoken Farsi, it's
just "چیه".You will see this a lot. For example,
اسم تو چیه؟
What's your name?
Or "اون چیه", what's that? And "این چیه؟", what's this?
It's they're used a lot. But you should remember that "چیه" is the "چه است",
But it's not used. This one is not used in written Farsi, but in spoken
Farsi. So the points about "چه": first putting it as close to the verb
as possible. Secondly, if you want to specify the noun,
you just put it before that noun, and that noun gets a "ی" and it's
pronounced "ee," like "چه فیلمی" and "چه غذایی" and "چه کتابی". And the third point is
that "چی", when it's alone in spoken Farsi, instead of "چه", they say "چی".
Like "چی خوردی". And "چی کتابی" is wrong, because there's a noun after "چه". So we
should just use a "چه". And the last point was a "چه" with the verb "to be,"
that is pronounced "چه" in spoken Farsi.