Why

"Why" in Japanese

どうして

dōshite

((interrogative) for what reason)

なんで

nande

((interrogative) for what reason)

何故

naze

((interrogative) for what reason)

何故

naniyue

((interrogative) for what reason)

どうして

dōshite

(the reason)

何故

naze

(the reason)

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.