Asking Questions

01

Yes/No Questions with "ar"

Put ar at the front of a statement and it becomes a yes/no question, much as English turns "you are" into "are you":

• Ar tu kalbi lietuviškai?

  Do you speak Lithuanian?

• Ar yra laisvų vietų?

  Are there free seats?

• Ar galima?

  Is it allowed? / May I?

In casual speech ar is often dropped, and only the rising intonation marks the question:

• Tu ateini?

  Are you coming?

02

Answering Yes and No

Two short words answer a yes/no question. Lithuanian has no equivalent of the English "Yes, I do" - there is no helper verb to echo, so these stand on their own or lead into a full sentence:

• taip - yes
• ne - no

• Ar nori kavos? Taip, ačiū.

  Do you want coffee? Yes, thanks.

• Ar supratai? Ne.

  Did you understand? No.

03

Question Words

To ask about a specific detail, start with a question word:

• kas (who / what), kur (where), kada (when)
• kaip (how), kodėl (why), kiek (how much / many)
• koks (what kind), kuris (which)

• Kur tu gyveni?

  Where do you live?

• Kada atvažiuoji?

  When are you coming?

• Kiek tai kainuoja?

  How much does this cost?

• Kaip tau sekasi?

  How are you doing?

04

Where the Question Word Goes

The question word stands at the start of the question, and the rest of the sentence follows in fairly free order - you do not invert or add a helper verb the way English does with "do":

• Kur jis dirba?

  Where does he work?

• Kodėl tu verki?

  Why are you crying?

A question word can combine with a preposition, which sits in front of it:

• Iš kur tu?

  Where are you from?

• Su kuo eini?

  Who are you going with?

05

Checking: "… ar ne?"

To turn a statement into a checking question ("…, isn't it?"), add ar ne? at the end:

• Gražu, ar ne?

  It's beautiful, isn't it?

06

Question Words Can Change Form

Because kas, koks and kuris are pronouns, they take whatever case the sentence needs - they are not frozen:

• Ko tau reikia?

  What do you need? (genitive)

• Kam tai?

  For whom is this? (dative)

• Su kuo?

  With whom?

So a question word is not a fixed label but a real pronoun, declining like the others in its family.