"To kwestia życia i śmierci."

Translation: It is a matter of life and death.

[8KAITO8]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but shouldn't it be "an issue" (insted of "a issue")?

[Jellei]

I think it could be possible, but as an idiomatic phrase English uses "matter".

[8KAITO8]

I agree, it could be both "an issue" and "a matter", however "matter" feels more correct.
What I meant is that one of suggested answers is "... A issue ..." not "... AN issue ...". Wrong article, I believe :)
My previous question was not clear enough, sorry for that. I have edited it.

[Jellei]

Oh yeah, good call! Fixed it, thanks :)

[nod032]

Why not "It is a life and death matter"? I know it doesn't sound so good but still...

[SonofTheAlmighty]

"It is a life and death matter" is the normal wording of this phrase to my American English ears. "It is a matter of life and death" is understood but not the most common way of saying it.

[alik1989]

Actually, the exact opposite is the case. The iweb corpus (link below) produces the following results:

A matter of life and death - 2251 hits
A matter of life or death - 711 hits
A life or death matter - 83 hits
A life and death matter - 68 hits

But you'd be pleased to know that I've just added the last two options to the database.

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https://www.english-corpora.org/iweb/

[leon32886]

Nikt w Polsce nie powie "kwestia życia i śmierci " zawsze mówi się "kwestia życia lub śmierci " jako wybór. "matter of life or death

[br0d4]

Nie zgodzę się z Tobą, w mowie i w literaturze funkcjonują obie wersje. Ale żeby nie być gołosłownym, sprawdziłem jeszcze w 2 korpusach języka polskiego. Oto wyniki:

• https://sjp.pwn.pl/korpus/ pokazuje 2 wystąpienia z "i" , żadnego z "lub".
• http://nkjp.pl/poliqarp/nkjp300/query/ pokazuje 9 wystąpień z "i", 1 z "lub" i 1 z "bądź".

[JamesTWils]

What is the distinction between kwestia and sprawa?

[Jellei]

"sprawa" is a more common word, I guess "kwestia" is used when either "matter" or "question" could work...