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- "いくらですか?"
"いくらですか?"
Translation:How much is it?
28 Comments
528
イクラ comes from икра which is Russian (ikra) so katakana is used. The words are unrelated.
It is optional. Originally, question marks were not part of the Japanese writing style (at least says so Wikipedia: "疑問符は元来の日本語の書法にはない"¹). "However, the question mark is very commonly used, especially in casual and creative writing and in manga."² I'd say Western influence changed the writing style. Now it's very common³. However, it is not usually used in formal Japanese¹¹.
¹https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%96%91%E5%95%8F%E7%AC%A6#%E6%97%A5%E6%9C%AC%E8%AA%9E
²https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_punctuation#Question_mark
³http://yesjapan.com/YJ6/question/896/do-japanese-people-use-question-marks
¹¹https://cotoacademy.com/japanese-punctuation/
22
Could it be translated as "How much are you"?
In other examples, it seems to me that when the subject is omitted, it implies you in a question and I in a descriptive sentence.