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- "あれは何ですか?"
"あれは何ですか?"
Translation:What is that?
89 Comments
It has ti do with the distance from the listener. In english we have "this" for things close to the speaker (either distance or time) and "that" for things farther away. Japanese has "kore/kono" for things close ti the speaker, "sore/sono" for things close to the listener, and "are/ano" for things far from both of them.
I'm not sure if this is exactly correct, but これ/それ/あれ are differentiated by "distance" so if you're talking about the concept of a schmoople, when your friend says it, presumably the idea is close to them (in their head) but far from you (you weren't thinking about schmooples), so それは何ですか? (or more likely 何それ?if you're friends).
Alternatively, if you were reading a book and a schmoople appeared in the story, you might look at your friend and say 「"schmoople"って、何これ?」
Or your teacher walks in and says "I got a schmoople today", so you might look at your friend and say 「何あれ?」, then back at your teacher and say 「何それ?」
Friend:今日は schmoopleをかいました! You: それは何ですか? (More casual:何それ?) Since the friend (listener) bought the schmoople, it is presumably closer to the listener which means you should use それ. I think if you were talking to your friend about a mutual friend who bought a schmoople instead, you would still use それ because the listener brought it up. The topic is "closer" to the listener since they are the ones who mentioned it. I think あれ refers specifically to a physical distance that is far for both the speaker and listener.
I've learned that こ is for things close to the speaker (これ=this here), そ is for things close to the listener (それ=that thing close to you) while あ is used for things that are in neither person's proximity (あれ=that thing waay over there)
Is this correct?
EDIT or I could just read the repy directly underneath, yes that's correct Imma take my 2 cents and leave
This is by no means a complete set, but most of the common sets would be:
K:
- これ - this thing
- この - this (thing)
- ここ - here
- こちら - this person/this direction
- こんな - this kind of
S:
- それ - that thing
- その - that (thing)
- そこ - there
- そちら - that person/that direction
- そんな - that kind of
A:
- あれ - that thing (over there)
- あの - that (thing over there)
- あそこ - (over) there
- あちら - that person/that direction (over there)
- あんな - that kind of
D:
- どれ - which thing
- どの - which (thing)
- どこ - where
- どちら - which person/which direction
- どんな - what kind of
Also, be careful with あ ("a") and お ("o") ;)
Since the the menu is close to you or in your hands, wouldn't you ask the waiter これは何ですか? Or if you're pointing a menu behind the cashier's head like at fast food restaurants, perhaps それは何ですか? but with more clarification about what you want to know about? I figured あれは何ですか? was reserved for some distant object, but at a restaurant, the menu would be present in some way close to the waiter/staff or the diner? Somebody help . . .
Yeah, you're pretty close. This would be my example for illustrating the differences:
You're at a fancy restaurant, with a food menu in your hand. The waiter comes up to you holding the wine list and asks if you're ready to order.
- これ: You're not sure about one of the food items (you know how fancy restaurants are, with their pretentious names for completely normal food... >_>), so you point to it on the menu in your hand and say これは何ですか?The waiter replies それはですね、我々の特製イカ墨入りのオムレツです。
- それ: You end up ordering a steak, because you're boring and don't like to try weird foods like squid ink omelettes, and ask the waiter to recommend a wine to go with it. The waiter points to one of the red wines on the list and says これはどうですか?You're a bit of a wine connoisseur, so you want to know more about it and ask へぇ、それは何ですか?
- あれ: You notice there is a sign board over by the entrance on the far side of the restaurant which says something like "Chef's special soup of the day: ask your waiter", so you point to it and ask the waiter あれは何ですか?The waiter replies あれはですね、今日はクリーミーカボチャポタージュです。
Note how the pronoun changes (sometimes) depending on who is speaking and their spatial relationship to the object. あれ doesn't change because by definition, it refers to something that is far away from both parties.
Also, to answer @BazTheLinuxGuy's question, you would use the これ/それ/あれ pronouns whenever you don't know what to call a thing (e.g. like a generic "this/that thing") or it's clear what thing you're talking about from the context of the sentence (e.g. pointing to something or responding about a specific thing). They're pronouns, so they get used in place of other things. Whenever the waiter replied to you, they could have said お客様が示したものは... ("the thing the customer has pointed to is ...") instead of これ/それ/あれ は..., but it's much more natural to just say "this/that".
Kore is for "this", something that is in your hand or you are touching, exactly like in english. [Kore wa .....(This....) Close to you and not that close to the other speaker.
Sore is for that, something close to you but that you can/ can t touch, it is not in your hands. It is at the same distance from you and the other speaker
Are is simillar with Sore, yes, bcz the thing that we are talking about is not close to us like when we use Kore. But here it's like "that thing over there" something far away from both you and the other speaker.
</pre>For anyone confused, I learned ko, so, a, do. Ko- close enough to touch for speaker. So- close enough to touch for listener. A- far from speaker and listener. Do- a question Practice chanting that with gestures. ko (point in front of you) so (point across the room) a (point at the horizon) do (shrug as if asking a question) I hope this helps! ~♡
Yes, 何 on its own means "what". Actually, in casual speech, 「あれは何?」 is an acceptable way to say "What is that?"
However, the role of です is, as always, to connect the object, in this case "what", to the subject, in this case "that". If you don't include 何, there is nothing for です to connect.
Of course, か is necessary to turn "That is what" into a proper question "What is that?"
Ah, actually, now that I wrote that second part out, I think I understand where you're getting mixed up.
Let's write out the exercise sentence just in hiragana:
あれ は なん です か
Note how I've separated the words. If you read なんで as the word for "why", here's how it would look:
あれ は なんで す か
You're left with a weird すか at the end. So to keep the sentence making sense, it has to be なん, or "what is that"
Ahh, right. I see what you mean. My apologies, I didn't click on the character to check what it means f(^_^;
It's not exactly a mistake, but it's an unfortunate result of the way Duo gives us information about phrases. When you click on 何, it gives you the translation of the whole phrase, 何ですか as "what", and of the kanji itself, 何 as "what".
However, contained within the phrase 何ですか is also 何で which means "why", so when you click 何, Duo recognizes those three possible meanings.
You'll notice the placement of "what", "why" and "what" is staggered to be beneath the center of 何ですか、何で and 何, respectively.
は is the topic marker. When you see it think of it as "on the topic of...x"
Technically in this sentence you are describing something. You are describing あれ, or more specifically, asking for a description of あれ.
あれは何ですか
あれ - "That" (thing over there)
は - Topic particle (On the topic of that (thing over there)
何 - what
です - Copula/verb functions as "To be/is/am/are"
か - Question particle "?"
So "On the topic of that thing over there - What is it?"
Simplified to "What is that?"
It would be used to identity some unknown object which is far away from both the speaker and the listener.
But if someone said to you "I need to tell you something", I'm guess the thing they want to tell you is inside their head (i.e. close to the listener for you), so you would say それ instead of あれ.
Also, あれは何ですか is pronounced are wa nan desu ka, not ha and nani as you have in your question ;)
は is pronounced "wa" when it is being used as a topic marker and "ha" when it is part of a word. わ is only used as a part of a word for "wa".
When you see it think of it as "on the topic of...x", so in this sentence "あれ" "that" is the topic. "On the topic of that (thing) - what is it?"
When the writing system was reformed the sounds of many kana were changed and standardized. Before the reform each kana could have multiple readings depending on the situation and it was a complete mess to understand.
Originally pronounced 'pa' and 'fa' it then turned into a 'wa' sound when at the end of a word. It was decided that the particle は was not a word itself and became a part of the word it followed so it always took the "wa" pronunciation. Then when the H, W and vowel kana were combined and rearranged, the は took on a new "ha" pronunciation. Since this kana was already very common as grammar particle "wa" though, rather than change the pronunciation or the particle kana entirely and have to re-educate a population to read and write, they simply kept both readings. Similarly the kana を originally "wo" is "o" as an object particle and へ "he" is "e" as a direction particle.
No, unfortunately you can't be that loose with the interpretation. です is the copula, or roughly equivalent to "is"/"am" in English, hence "what is that?" If you want to change the verb to "eat", you must use the Japanese verb 食べる(たべる)which means "to eat".
There are a number of other grammatical points you're glossing over. To say "What do you want to eat?", you'll need more advance grammar structures than what we've learned so far.
Furthermore, the は "as in subject", as you say, is a particle, pronounced as wa even though it is written ha, which tells us that the noun or phrase before it is the subject. It doesn't mean "tooth" at all; "tooth" would be written as 歯 and pronounced ha.
What I did for remembering the difference between これ(kore), それ(sore), どれ(dore), and あれ(are) was this
それ(sore) That( Next to you)/ Saying: “So what are you showing me?”
あれ(are) That( Over there)/Saying: “Are you not seeing Jesus over there?”
これ(kore) This( Next to the speaker)/ Saying: “Come over here look at this/ kome over here look at this!”
どれ(dore) Which one/Saying:”Do you want one? Ok then which one?” I hope this was helpful to someone god bless in Jesus holy name I pray amen!
That's more a stylistic choice to indicate the rise in intonation of a question, especially in more casual writing where か is usually dropped and questions are indicated by intonation instead. It isn't required though and Duo doesn't even grade most punctuation.
In more formal writing the question mark wouldn't normally be used.
"this" is for something near the speaker. If you are holding something or close to something you would say "This thing" to point the listeners attention towards your direction. This is これ in Japanese. Think "ThIs" with the "i" being "I, me, myself". You are pulling attention into you.
"That" is for something far from the speaker. You would use "that" while maybe pointing your finger at something to point the listener away from you. In English we use "that" both for things near the listener "that thing that you are holding" as well as for things that are far from both the speaker and listener "That thing over there across the street". Japanese uses two separate words それ for things near the listener and あれ for things far from both people.
"ThAt" pushes attention "Away" from you
あれ - That(far) は - topic indicator 何 - What です - is か - question indicator Are wa nani desu ka?
"That(far)" is inaccurate and misleading.
- これ refers to something near the speaker
- それ refers to something near the listener
- あれ refers to something far from both the speaker and the listener
When the object is far from the speaker, it can be それ or あれ; it's the distance from the listener that matters.
Also, 何ですか is pronounced "nan
desu ka"