"日本人ですか?"
Translation:Are you Japanese?
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By the context. If someone randomly comes up to you and says this, without pointing (or making discreet eye motions) at someone or seeming like they're having an existential crisis, you can probably safely assume they are asking you if you're Japanese.
If this question comes up in the middle of a conversation, presumably the conversation up to that point will shed some light as to which it should be.
@AustinBerm3 Yes, that would work as well. If anything, because 私は日本人ですか is a pretty uncommon question, it would probably be more natural to emphasize 私 as the subject in this way. The answer I gave was more about continuing the conversation about the role of context in conveying the meaning in Japanese.
That's an interesting point. In formal writing, I believe you're correct, in that questions will also end with a period 。
I'm not a native speaker, so I'm only guessing, but I think the question mark denotes a questioning tone of voice, while the か represents the grammatical idea of a question.
For example, in casual speech/communication, one could say/type 「日本人?」 to mean the same as 「日本人ですか。」
I'm not sure if Duo would (or should) count it as correct. It's kind of on the border line between "correct" and "incorrect"; and since the English language has no centralized authority, a definitive answer might not be possible.
To me, "a Japanese" sounds stylistically odd, but is completely clear in its meaning. So I'm leaning towards saying it's correct, but awkward.
Ah, that's not what I'm referring to, I'm referring to the omission of the subject. The sentence translated to English could mean "Are you Japanese?", "Is he/she Japanese?", "Are they Japanese?" (probably unless there's some exception to plural), perhaps even "Am I Japanese?", but taken literally it means "Is Japanese (person)?".
(Duolingo does accept the other meanings listed above when you have to type it out but it might better reinforce what the sentence means in Japanese if a context was given with the question.)
You're right, the subject can be pretty much anyone in the right context.
But this is the case with a large number of sentences in Japanese (they omit the subject A LOT), so I think Duo assumes you will assume the context of "I am saying this, as a stand alone statement".
Also, there is no exception for the plural ;)
I wouldn't go so far as to say rude. I agree that 日本の方 is definitely more respectful, but unless the person you are asking is significantly and obviously older than you, or is clearly an important or well-respected individual, or is a customer/client, then 日本人 seems good enough to me.
Even in the situations I mentioned above, if you look/act 外人 (like a foreigner), I feel that Japanese people are very understanding of how complicated their social interactions can be to learn, and don't mind receiving "average politeness" even though they would normally get "above average respectfulness".
"The definition of insanity is repeating the same actions over and over again and expecting different results."
Duo should be giving you a suggestion of what the "correct" answer is. "Are you a Japanese" is not exactly correct English; either "Are you Japanese" or "Are you a Japanese person" would be more natural.
Japanese is highly contextual. however, exercises in general don't have any context. so it is technically possible for this question to be referencing anyone ( i, you, he, she, we, they... etc )
without more information it is most likely that statements are being made about yourself the speaker ( i ), and questions are directed at a second person ( you )
to explicitly state otherwise you would introduce the question with [ subject ] は eg
彼は日本人ですか。 ・ 彼女は日本人ですか。
Technically yes, but I believe Duo's modus operandi is to ignore punctuation. I certainly get a great many questions correct even when I don't end the sentence with a period.
That said, "You are Japanese?" sounds like it's meant to sound incredulous and thus 日本人なんですか? seems like a better translation ;)