"Do you have luggage?"
Translation:荷物はありますか？
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"Is there any luggage?" Would be a more direct translation, out of context.
They both work, but using -が implies having rather than -は which is being.
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Thank you, I was just just trying to figure out what the difference in actual meaning was between は and が particles in these examples. This helps!
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Personally I think the use of は here isn't expected or even likely in many real-world scenarios. At best you could say は and が are equally likely. And the difference is about the same difference between "As for luggage, do you have any" and "Do you have any luggage" - i.e. pretty subtle.
Why is にもつをもっていますか？ not acceptable?
(In the same vein that けいたい電話をもっていますか？, or something quite similar to that, is accepted in another exercise for 'Do you have a cellphone'?)
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荷物があるの？not accepted, even though this question is 3 years old, and every other similar exercise in this lesson accepts the same pattern...
I'm not sure but I think "is there any luggage" would be a more literal translation.
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My thoughts on 荷物はありますか？ and "荷物を持っていますか"
"荷物を持っていますか" is like saying, "are you 'holding' luggage?" whereas 荷物はありますか？ is akin to saying "Is there any luggage?"
Which to use would depend on context.
荷物はありますか？
Do you want to ask the existence of said luggage and would the implication of said luggage your asking for be from said person your talking to and not confused as someone else's luggage or just luggage laying around not belonging to anyone in particular, then you using "荷物はありますか？" would work.
"荷物を持っていますか"
I think is a bit more active and direct, Your not just asking of the exitances of luggage with the, "荷物はありますか？/ "is there luggage?" translation. Your asking of the "holding／ 持って" which more strongly implies possession of said object/luggage than the other option. The added implication of ownership makes it more obvious that you are asking if they have luggage.
Thought above are based on my current understanding of Japanese main reason is my understanding of あります as is there/ does it exits.
Update after reading some of this forum
I did see a comment by cherbul from a question by jellysquidbrains saying that あります also means have based what they're textbook said and if true then I would change my options to being that both are equal since have implies possession of said object the same way holding does The only way holding would work better is if the person is literally holding the luggage and even in that case you could still use あります translation.
Would a better sentence for this translation be: あなたは荷物をもってありますか? Or would it end with something different? あるか maybe?
No, and for a few reasons. Firstly, there would really be no need for あなた、since questions are usually assumed to be about the person you're talking to. Secondly, if you're trying to use the verb 持つ、while that verb would work here, that is not quite how you conjugate into the て form. It is always ている or ています、never てあります。
「荷物を持っていますか」 would work, and I believe the same as 「荷物を持っているか」、「荷物を持っているの？」、「荷物を持っている？」、 and I believe「荷物はある？」
Thanks for the correction, haven't seen ある even used with a て form verb so I don't know why I thought that... What would you say is the difference between ている and ています? Is it only the politeness?
Yes, that would be the only difference, the ます form for anything is also known as the polite form, so really it's only formality and politeness.