Most people freeze at exactly the same moment, cards shuffled, screen open, and no idea what to actually say. The good news is that a first question does not need to be clever or profound, it just needs to be something you genuinely want to think about.
Below are questions you can borrow word for word, sorted by the situations people most often bring to a first reading.
Start with an open question, not a fortune
The single most useful shift for a beginner is moving from "what will happen" to "what should I look at." Tarot is a mirror and a prompt, not a weather forecast, so questions that ask for a perspective land much better than questions that ask for a date.
Compare these two. "Will I get the job?" gives you a card and a shrug. "What am I not seeing about this job application?" gives you something to sit with, argue with, and act on. Same situation, completely different conversation. Our fuller walkthrough on how to phrase tarot questions has more of this if you want to go deeper.
Love and relationships
Try: "What am I bringing into this relationship that I have not noticed?" Or "What do I actually want from dating right now, underneath the noise?" Or, if a specific person is on your mind, "What is my part in this dynamic?"
Notice that none of these ask what the other person is thinking. Readings about other people's inner lives tend to produce projection dressed up as insight, and you will usually learn more by turning the lens around. If you are single and unsure what you are even looking for, "What would a relationship need to give me for it to be worth it?" is a surprisingly clarifying first draw.