"Какой у тебя родной язык?"

Translation: What is your native language?

[madam_im_adam]

would какой твой родной язык also work?

[Smike77]

I think it sounds even better

[sjoqvist]

If I hover over Какой, the translation says both "What" and "Which". Yet "Which is your native language?" is incorrect. Why is that?

[vitaoma]

You usually use "which" to ask the listener to choose among a set of options, while "what" leaves the answer open.

[Duane258217]

You are asking just that, among the set of options "all the languages" which one do you speak. Same if you ask about a car, when you ask which car do you drive? the set of options is the available cars. If you ask what is on your mind, then there is a difference. But to me, which language do you speak? sounds perfect.

[SpokeMnemosyne]

I agree. While I absolutely understand vitaoma's point, because there's a possible context he's correct, "which" could also be correct. Maybe a person grew up in a country with multiple official languages, and is being asked which one they think is their native language. So I absolutely think "which..." should be accepted.

[Kirsten54022]

agreed. I also put which.

[750.aBN79NyO3ET2]

Russian, but English took over, so I'm here.

[CathyFranc6]

You know, I was stumped how I would answer this question. You are spot on, thank you. : )

[xO.Lx]

Spanish.

[deactivated user]

It's my family language

[Thieumz]

Why родной and not родный?

[firstlos]

Because there is a subset of masculine adjectives that end in -о́й (that is oj with a stress on the o), e.g., большой, больной, родной, другой, молодой и т.д.

[mb505]

Do they always end in ой? Because I put in "warm day" and "warm fish" in google translate and for day it was теплый and for fish it was теплой

[Theron126]

Google translate is utterly unreliable. The masculine nominative form of the adjective is "тёплый". "Fish" is a feminine noun so the correct nominative form of the adjective is "тёплая", but for some reason on "warm fish" it gives you the answer in a different case. Just now it showed me "тёплой рыбы" which is genitive case, the nominative is "тёплая рыба".

Edit: for checking different forms of a word, this site is immeasurably better than GT. The whole site is in Russian so it may take a bit to learn your way around but it's well worth it. http://www.morfologija.ru/%D1%81%D0%BB%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%BE%D1%84%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%BC%D0%B0/%D1%82%D1%91%D0%BF%D0%BB%D1%8B%D0%B9

[joseperus]

Very interesting link, thank you

[LauPaSat]

Полший (Polish) I hope it is like this in Russian

[Maja890643]

*польский

[IanKendric3]

Guapanese.

[Juan_Villalba13]

Испанский.

[Trudy664886]

I wrote which instead of what and it was not accepted.
.

[Sekisova_tatiana]

So do I. I wrote "which is your mother tongue" and of course Dou didn't take my answer. But I want to know can I translate so? If not why not? Please, people who have English as their first language, help me

[jvdn.aze]

Azerbaijani

[Taemasu]

what is wrong with 'mother tounge'?

[Randonneur3]

tongue

[ULRICHSCHL4]

The female voice clearly pronounces родной with an additional initial syllabel with an "a". This is confusing

[MichaelKarmody]

Why not "What is your first language?" First implies native.

[deactivated user]

Финский.

[Ani_live13]

Tatarian

[elaesztus]

surely "native language" can be translated as "mother tongue"?

[Bichidian_old]

Китайский

[SuperCrapaud]

But not "Which is your native tongue" Hmm. Is that an Americanism then, is that why it is not accepted? Or perhaps it has lapsed into archaism.