As I was out running today, it occurred to me that when you ask where someone is from in German – Woher kommen Sie? – the form of “where” you are using sounds much more like English than the shorter Wo form. Both English and German have a number of compounds formed with “where/wo,” however the German ones appear to be more frequently used and therefore warrant treatment in most German grammar books. (Note that the translations of the English where-compounds are mainly wo-compounds, however they tend not to be the included in such lists further supporting the notion that the English forms are of lower frequency of use.)
| Woher kommen Sie? | Where do you come from? |
| Wohin gehen Sie? | Where are you going to? |
| Wofür ist das? | What’s that for? |
| Worüber spricht er? | What’s he talking about? |
| Womit kann man das reparieren? | What can one repair that with? |
| Woraus ist das gemacht? | What’s that made out of? |
| Wohin soll ich das stellen? | Where should I put that? |
| Wonach suchst du? | What are you looking for? |
These examples come from http://www.lsa.umich.edu/german/hmr/Grammatik/Da/Da.html
The English where-compounds do not appear to be treated as being of special grammatical interest, however the formations seem quite similar, “where” + preposition to create an adverb:
Whereabouts – wohin
Whereby – dict.cc offers wodurch, womit and wobei
Wherefore – wozu
Wherein – worin
Whereupon – woraufhin
Several where-compounds in English do not follow this pattern and form other parts of speech:
Whereabouts – noun der Aufenthaltsort (“His whereabouts were unknown”)
Whereas – conjunction, dict.cc offers wohingehen, während, hingehen
Wherewithal – noun das Nötiges (“He lacked the wherewithal to pay”)
This search also introduced me to the idiomatic expressions Woher wissen Sie das? – “Where did you get that from?” (or perhaps simply “Huh?!”) and Woher soll ich das wissen? – “How am I supposed to know?” – which seem like they might come in handy!
Earthquake Words/Erdbeben Wörter 