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.

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