Changing a statement into a question in Japanese

Hello everyone!
I hope you are doing well♡

In this post I will talk about making questions in Japanese.
Basically, the order of the sentence doesn't change. What happens is that you just add か at the end of a sentence to change it into a question.

English:
This is an apple.
To change this statement into a question in English you would say:
Is this an apple? (We change the order of the sentence)

Japanese:
これはリンゴです。(kore wa ringo desu) = this is an apple.
To change it into a question you will just add kaか at the end of the sentence and say:
これはリンゴですか ? (kore wa ringo desuka)

Easy!!😃

That was the formal, polite way of speaking.

What about the informal, casual way?!

When you are talking casually, to your friends or family for example, you don't need (desu, masu) sentence endings.

So instead of saying,
これはリンゴです
you will just say:
これはリンゴ(だ)。

To change it into a question you can either, simply say the sentence with a rising intonation:
これはリンゴ?
Or, you can add なの? (nano) and say:
これはリンゴなの?
We need な before の because, リンゴ (apple) is a noun. It is not a verb or an i-adjective.


Another example: (You are eating - Are you eating?)
Formal, polite:
あなたは食べています。(anata wa tabeteimasu.)
あなたは食べていますか？(anata wa tabeteimasuka?)
(We just add か at the end of the sentence)

Informal, casual:
あなたは食べている。(anata wa tabeteiru.)
あなたは食べているの？(anata wa tabeteiruno?)

So, as you can see, we don't need な because 食べている is a verb.

In short, when asking questions informally:
1. Verb or i-adjective → の
2. Nouns or na-adjectives → なの.

I hope you find it helpful!
Thanks for reading and see you soon♡