1. Explain it simply
In Chinese, 'who' (谁) stays in the same position as the person/subject it replaces. You don't need to move it to the front of the sentence like in English.
Unlike English where we rearrange the sentence to put 'who' at the beginning, Chinese maintains its natural subject-verb-object word order even in questions.
2. Show examples
他是谁?
Tā shì shéi?
Who is he? (He is who?)
谁 stays in object position
谁是老师?
Shéi shì lǎoshī?
Who is the teacher?
谁 in subject position
你是谁?
Nǐ shì shéi?
Who are you?
Direct question pattern
3. Share a tip
Think of 谁 (shéi) as a blank space in the sentence that you're asking someone to fill in. Whatever position makes sense for the answer is where 谁 should go in the question.

