Sinhala Grammar #5: What, When, Where, Who?- Question Words in Sinhala

Have a burning question that you need to ask in Sinhala? I’ve got you covered! 

Today, we will learn about the structure of a question and the different types of 

questions you can ask.

The Structure of a Question

In Sinhala, a sentence can be turned into a question 

when you add one sound to the end of a sentence.

They eat bananas and apples.

Egolo kesel saha apple kanawaa.

එගොලො කෙසෙල් සහ ඇපල් කනවා.

Do they eat bananas and apples?

Egolo kesel saha apple kanawada?

එගොලො කෙසෙල් සහ ඇපල් කනවද?

Kanawaa -a + da = Kanawada/ කනවද?

In this case, all we had to do was attach the “da” sound to the end of our verb and

change the waa sound to a wa sound to form our question.

What, Who, Where, When, and Why?

Let’s look at the different types of questions we can ask:

What is this?

*Me mokaada/(mokakda/monaada)?

මේ මොකාද?

*I’ve included several options for the words in this sentence because different people

have their own ways of saying certain things in Sinhala. I’m sticking

 with what I hear my family use, which is “Me mokada”, the most abbreviated 

version of this sentence.

You could also ask:
What is that?

E mokaada?

ඒමොකාද?

If you wanted to ask what someone is doing:

What are you doing?

Mokaada/monaada *karanne?

මොකාද කරන්නේ?

Who is that?

E kauda?

ඒ කව් ද?

Where are you?

Oya koheda?

ඔයා කොහෙද?

Where are you going?

Koheda yanne?

ඔයා කොහෙද යන්නේ?

When did you come?

Oya ave kavadaada?

ඔයා ආවේ කවදාද?

Why did you leave?

Aeyi oya giye?

ඇයි ඔයා ගියේ?

Things to note:

-Since “Aeyi” is the question word, you don’t need a “da” at the end of the sentence.

-*Also remember that with these question words, you need to change the 

verb into what I call the “Nne” form. (The same one we use when changing verbs

into the negative.)