Do you need a question mark to indicate a question in Japanese?


I was listening to a song and decided to check the lyrics to it.

<http://www.kasi-time.com/item-74499.html>

夜風に吹かれ 考える 好き 嫌い 嫌い 好き 繰り返す

Since there were no question marks, so it made me doubt if it was a question
being asked in the lyrics. Also, when I did a dictionary search for でしょう

[http://classic.jisho.org/sentences?jap=%E3%81%A7%E3%81%97%E3%82%87u&eng=](http://classic.jisho.org/sentences?jap=%E3%81%A7%E3%81%97%E3%82%87u&eng=)

Some have question marks, while some don't.




The short answer is 'no' because all questions end in 「か」 in any "official" or
"formal" writing. You just know when you see a question.

I never even learned how to use a question mark in elementary school. I was
surprised to learn that it was regularly used in English when I started
learning English in junior high school.

In non-official and non-formal writing these days, however, the question mark
is used everywhere, especially when the questions are short as in:

「マジで？」= "For real?"

「[車]{くるま}で[行]{い}くの？」= "Are you going by car?" or "Are you driving (there)?"

Even today, we would not often use a question mark at the end of a longer
question ending in 「か」 in an informal setting like a personal letter. It could
look "funny" if you used one. Old habits die hard.

