Asking ethnicity in German!
Hi.
I am not a German speaker and I don't speak German well but I have to ask a German where she is from originally. I think I shouldn't say "Woher kommst du?", because that literally means "where do you come from?" and I want to ask for her ethnicity.
So, can I say "Woher bist du?" which means "Where are you from?" or are there any better translations to ask ethnicity?

Question

Answer

It's easy to make a bad impression with this question. Here's a careful/indirect option: "Darf ich fragen, wo du herkommst?" - or "...wo deine Familie herkommt", in case it's more likely she's born in Germany. I'd ask like that, and in a cheerful tone ;)

Answer

Yes your are right you can say "Woher bist du?"

But we have more native way to ask this :"Von woher bist du?" Its a little bit redundant because von and woher has the nearly the same meaning , but by this we really want to stress that we are interesting in somone's origin.

لا تفوّت فرصة تعلّم لغة جديدة وأنت مرتاح في منزلك. تصفّح مجموعتنا المختارة من مدرّسي اللغات ذوي الخبرة وسجّل في درسك الأول الآن!