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My grammar book states that both "wieso" and "warum" mean "why" but my friend who lived in Germany for one year states there's a subtle difference in questioning between them but couldn't really elaborate further.

Does anyone have any examples of the difference?

My book states you can use both in this sentence:

Wieso hast du das gemacht?

Warum hast du das gemacht?

but of course that doesn't help me in the differentiation of the usage.

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user5105
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  • "Wieso, weshalb, warum? Wer nicht fragt bleibt dumm." On a more serious note, I think they're interchangeable but I was once told that "wieso" is kinda like "how so" or "how come" – thekeyofgb Jan 19 '14 at 11:24
  • Quite an interesting thought about those words (including weshalb and weswegen) given here - Anyhow, I don't see any significant difference. – Em1 Jan 19 '14 at 12:37
  • I'd associate "wieso" lightly with rhetorical questions: "Wieso kommst du schon wieder zu spät?!" - "Wieso müssen die Besucher der Nachbarn immer auf unserer Auffahrt parken!" – Ingo Jan 19 '14 at 12:56
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    @Em1 This personal Sprachgefühl might differ from person to person. I would regard all 4 question words the same with weswegen being rather strange here due to its length relative to the length of the whole sentence. – Toscho Jan 19 '14 at 15:47
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    @Em1... I disagree with the linked article insofar as people do by no means use "warum" only if they want to indicate something. It is just the most used word, period. Maybe there is a point about deshalb, but that might also very well be to its more slightly more scientific character, which leads to it being used whenever people want to avoid the generic "warum". – Emanuel Jan 19 '14 at 21:10
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    Thanks for the other link (duplicate answer) but my german is not yet quite good enough to get the nuances of eine deutsche Antwort ; ) – user5105 Jan 19 '14 at 23:07

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