Questions – How to Ask ‘Will the (An) Answer Be?’ Correctly

Whether is not a question word, although it looks like one.

Question words beginning with wh are the following:

• what
• which
• where
• who
• whose
• when
• why

The rule for making questions using question words is fairly simple:

Question word + auxiliary + subject + infinite or, "QUASI" is a useful acronym. ^{(It is not infallible but it works most of the time)}

1) Which colour did she choose to make it? Blue or green? (if there is a limited choice)

2) What colours did she use? (a wider choice of colours is inferred here)

3) Who made it? Did you? OR "Was it me or you?" (in this case, who is the subject of the question and does not require an auxiliary)

You can omit the wh question word and ask a yes/no type question.

Auxiliary + subject + infinite

• "Did you use blue or green?" asked Maria.
• Maria asked, "Did you make it?"

If you wanted to use whether you have to rephrase your sentence. Note that the following are not questions. There is no question mark at the end.

• Maria asked whether she used blue or green.
• Maria asked whether [name] made it or not.

If you really need to make questions with whether then the following is acceptable

• Do you know whether she used blue or green to make her scarf (it)?
• Did you find out whether it was me or her who made it?

I believe I understand your concern because similar confusion arose at some point in my English study, too, due to a linguistic difference between my native tongue and English. Your language is perhaps like mine, Thai, where you answer to the truth condition of the statement of the question rather than the truth itself. For example, if you ask, in Thai, "aren't you going to school today?" and the answer is "yes," the answerer means they are not going to school. "Yes" here is "yes, (it is true that I am not going to school)," not "yes, (I'm going to school.)"

I think it helps if you think of English as somewhat simpler than that. In English, whether you answer "yes" or "no" only depends on the reality and has nothing to do with how the question is worded. Whether the question is "do you know?" or "don't you know?," "yes" and "no" still have the same meanings: in both cases, if you answer "yes," it means "you know," and if you answer "no," it means "you don't know."

Answering with plain "yes" or "no," however, may sound too flat and could sometimes be misunderstood, so it's safer to respond with a complete answer like "yes, I do." (meaning, you know) or "no, I don't" (meaning, you don't know) if you can't think of anything fancier like "no, I never knew," or "no, this is the first time I've heard about it!"

As stated by other Answerers, one thing to consider is that sometimes "don't you know?" is a rhetorical question, meaning the speaker doesn't actually expect an answer, so you don't have to answer them. You usually can guess from context whether it is an actual question or not.