Yes/No Questions (Entscheidungsfragen)

A yes/no question (German Entscheidungsfrage, literally "decision question") is one you can answer with yes or no: Are you coming? Do you have time? Is that right? German forms these in the simplest way imaginable — it just puts the verb first. There is no helper word, no "do," no rearranging beyond a single swap of verb and subject. If you can say a German statement, you can turn it into a yes/no question by moving the verb to the very front. This is one of the rare places where German is genuinely easier than English.

The core rule: verb first, subject second

A German statement puts the finite (conjugated) verb in second position: Du kommst morgen ("You're coming tomorrow"). To make a yes/no question, you move that verb into first position and the subject follows it:

That last example is the headline: English needs the helper "do" ("Do you speak..."), but German simply leads with the real verb sprichst. The pattern is a one-step transformation:

Why there is no "do"

English is unusual: it props up questions and negatives with a meaningless "do" (Do you know? I don't know.). Most languages, German included, never developed this habit. German marks a question by word order alone — the verb in first position is the question signal. This is why a German learner of English overuses "do," and an English learner of German keeps wanting to insert one. Resist it. The fronted verb already does all the work; adding tun ("to do") is both unnecessary and wrong.

Compound tenses and modal verbs: only the finite verb moves

When the verb is a cluster — a tense built with haben/sein + participle, or a modal + infinitive — only the finite (conjugated) part jumps to the front. The non-finite part (participle or infinitive) stays at the end, forming the familiar sentence bracket.

So the structure is [finite verb] – subject – ... – [rest of verb]. Only the front piece moves; everything else holds its normal place.

Answering: ja, nein — and doch

A yes/no question gets one of three answer words, and the third is the one English doesn't have.

• ja — "yes," confirming a positively phrased question.
• nein — "no," denying it.
• doch — "yes (it is true!)," used to contradict a negatively phrased question.

The doch logic is worth dwelling on. If someone asks a negative question — Hast du keine Zeit? ("Don't you have time?") — and you do have time, plain ja would be confusing. German solves this with a dedicated word: doch means "on the contrary, the positive is true." English can only manage it with a full emphatic sentence ("Yes, I do have time!"). If you instead agree with the negative ("No, I really don't"), you use nein.

The echo question: statement order with rising intonation

There is one more form you will hear: keeping statement order (Du kommst?) and signalling the question purely by a rising tone. This is a real, common pattern — but it is an echo / surprise question (informal), expressing disbelief or asking for confirmation of something just said, not the neutral default.

For a plain, neutral yes/no question, use verb-first. Save statement-order questions for when you are echoing or double-checking something surprising.

Common Mistakes

Inserting a "do"-helper, copying English.

Keeping statement order for a neutral question.

Moving the whole verb cluster to the front.

Answering a negative question with ja instead of doch.

Key Takeaways

• A yes/no question = finite verb first, subject second. No "do," no extra words.
• It's a one-step transform: take the statement, swap verb and subject, add a question mark (Du kommst → Kommst du?).
• In compound tenses/modals, only the finite part moves; the participle or infinitive stays at the end.
• Answers are ja / nein / doch: doch overturns a negatively phrased question — English has no one-word equivalent.
• Statement order with rising intonation (Du kommst?) is an (informal) echo question, not the neutral default.