- Forum >
- Topic: Japanese >
- "What picture will you draw?"
"What picture will you draw?"
Translation:何の絵を描きますか？
108 Comments
何 by itself means "what". When you add の to it it means "of what". え is just "picture", so it makes "what will you draw a picture of?"
何絵 (nani e) means "which picture" (like there are several pictures in front of you, and you will choose one of them to draw).
From Wasabi:
何 + noun
Meaning: Which
何駅で降りますか (Which station will you get off)?
何色が好きですか (Which color do you like)?
何味がお薦めですか (Which flavor do you recommend)?
何の絵 (nan no e) means "what kind of picture".
何の
- what kind; what sort
Maybe saying "what will you draw a picture of?" would make the meaning of the Japanese a little more clear than "what picture will you draw?", but I don't think that 何絵 would be appropriate in this case.
どれ is more like "which one", i.e. there are options in front of you and you can point to the one you are talking about
何 + [noun] is asking of the category of items in [noun], which one are you talking about. You can't necessarily point at all of the options
Yours would mean "What kind of pictures do you draw?" and plus you kinda put the no in the wrong place I'm not sure why, I think, honestly treat my comments with a grain of salt I'm still learning too
The の at the end is used more in informal situations in which です is not used. For example: 昼ご飯を食べるの? (Will you eat lunch?). In your sentence, there should be a の at the beginning (何の絵) to make the sentence mean "WHAT will you draw a PICTURE OF?", as IsolaCiao said.
But isn't this last example exactly what the question asked us to write? It's not a "picture of what", it's a "what picture".
I think this is one of the cases where it's wrong to try to map the English to the Japanese perfectly since the way it would be said in each language has nuances that easily change if we try to make one more like the other.
Why doesn't Duolingo teach you about the structure of sentences in Japanese? It's unreasonable to expect you to know it if they won't teach you about it! Duolingo, you REALLY need to fix this.
They do give brief explanations for each unit under the light bulb. It is understandable that they can't go in to deep because there is so much to explain. That's why it's nice that we have this feature where we can help each other. Also for detailed explanations apps like Human Japanese are excellent, if you don't mind paying for an app, I highly recommend that one.
705
The former is the artist being serious about his or her craft. The latter is the artist being all "Kitty!" and bending over to snuggle it.
何の絵 refers to the SUBJECT of the drawing. That would be, What will you draw a picture OF? For example, a drawing of a dog. "What picture" should translate to どの絵。 Reported it.
Wouldnt that be "which picture" will you draw? More like you have a list of options to draw and someone is asking you which one?
I took なにの to be the standard meaning of "what": 何の野菜。何の建物。What vegetables. What building.
Versus "which":
どの野菜。どの建物。
The use of の here threw me off too. Then again I'm still new, and im happy to be wrong, but those are my thoughts.
- 705
I think it's more like, you see someone with a blank sketchbook and a faraway look. You can tell that he or she wants to draw something and is looking for a subject in his or her internal world. Wondering what he or she will draw, you ask.
In a different question, "I do not draw" was translated into "えを書きません". With that, why is "何のえを書きますか" not accepted as a valid answer?
It is 描く in this sentence. 絵を描く (e o kaku) is a set phrase meaning "to draw a picture". Egaku and kaku meaning to draw are both written the same way in kanji (描く).
- 440
Can someone explain the usage of の in this sentence please? And is 何 pronounced nan here? Thanks haha
Yes, "nani" together with other words (not sure if every time) get pronounced as "nan".
It depends on the letter I think. Don't remember when it's Nani, but definetly when o is following.
Is the "no" really necessary here??
I mean, look at the English sentence, it's not "a picture of". It's "which" picture.
- 32
There is a difference between "which" and "what kind of". "Which" means you have a possibly limited set of pictures to choose from. While the question in exercise asks about the theme
"You will draw a picture of what?" is the better literal way of translating it, but it's not really a natural English sentence.
For this example, "What kind of picture" isn't really just pulling words out of a hat. The の acts like 'of' in English but in the opposite word direction (何のえ = "A picture of what"). You can ask "What picture will you draw?" or "What kind of picture will you draw?" and they mean almost the same thing.
However, if the example was asking about a movie or something with a title, then "What kind of movie" (どんな映画) would imply asking about the description of the movie, whereas "A movie of what"/"What movie" (何の映画) would imply asking for the title.
- 1334
What picture are you drawing to me means of a set possible pictures drawing which are you drawing. I would translate 何のえをかきますか as "What are you drawing a picture of?"
You could argue that either way with "What picture are you drawing".
Using 'which' instead of 'what' almost certainly implies you are drawing one of a set of possible pictures. But asking "What picture are you drawing" doesn't necessarily imply that.
"What are you drawing a picture of?" is also a good translation. But I'd say "What picture are you drawing?" is just as valid. They're just nuanced differences in word order
I'd say the most natural translation would be "What will you draw?" Apparently in this case English is more contextual than Japanese.
- 705
I don't know about anyone else, but the more I thought about that ("In this case, English is more contextual than Japanese.") the more it blew my mind.
What about this: えは何を書きますか Earlier we had お名前は何ですか Can't use similar construction here?
Duolingo's audio pronounces 描き as えまき. Isn't it かき? Is anyone else hearing えまき?
えがき (egaki) is a correct reading of 描き, but in this case the phrase 絵を描きます is read えをかきます (e o kakimasu). Contributors can't control how the word bank breaks up the sentences and which readings of the kanji that the TTS chooses, so the tiles are often read incorrectly.
This bothers me a lot, but I just pronounce the phrases on my own, so I don't forget the right pronunciation. It is not the only reading error from Duolingo...
From what I'm reading online - the original sound of 描き is kaki, but when combined with other words in a sentence (through rendaku), it becomes egaki? So the full sentence 絵を描きます would be e o egakimasu, I think?
Just trying to wrap my head around rendaku sounds now...
I'm not sure what you're reading, but 絵を描きます is a set phrase that is definitely pronounced kakimasu in daily life: https://jisho.org/search/ewokaku
When you want to say draw/paint without specifically saying "draw a picture", you use 描きます (egakimasu): https://jisho.org/search/egaku
I presume the 何 can be replaced with whatever you are drawing? i.e. is 猫の絵を描きます "I will draw a picture of a cat?"
Can を be replaced with は here? In some other examples with questions, often を or は could be used, but I didn't know if the grammar is different for this example.
Not in this kind of sentence. Specific acts like drawing something (or eating something, reading something, basically "do something to something else") need the を. は would be used for more general questions. 絵を描きますか。Means "Are you drawing a picture?" while 絵は描きますか。would mean "Do you draw pictures? (at all)". If you want to translate it literally, the は sentence could be translated as "Concerning pictures, do you draw them?"
描き is pronounced egaki, but whenever it comes up in the match quiz the hiragana is always かき
It's pronounced かきます. You're not confusing it with 絵 are you?
絵を描きあます (えをかきます)
Well in this case, since the 絵を is in front, it's pronounced かきます. Without the 絵を、it can be read as えがきます.
Just a Duolingo pronunciation error, report it
Just to clarify I’m not discussing the above sentence. You can’t discuss on the “pair match” question
That makes more sense. It can be pronounced as かきます for drawing something (or just drawing in general), or えがきます for drawing a picture specifically.
Duolingo's lack of explanations doesn't help in this situation
The mods have said before that they can only do so much about audio files because of Duolingo's software. Developers need to make changes to the way software reads kanji. For now, it picks a certain reading and the mods say that they can't change the reading without deleting and re-entering the word if I remember right.
https://jisho.org/search/何の says it is pronounced “なんの”. Although it might be different in other contexts.
When speaking the か isn't always necessary and I keep forgetting that this is duolingo and getting it "wrong" uhg
I don't understand why in questions sometimes only は is accepted as the particle for the object, sometimes only を, and sometimes both. For this sentence for example は was not accepted. Does this follow any logic?
As a general rule, you don't use は with question words like 何 (nani, what) or 誰 (dare, who). I think the same could be applied to a phrase using a question word, like 何の絵.
- 405
は shows the focus of the sentence, that's why sometimes it's interchangeable and sometimes not. you also can use it when you give a negative answer. (that also kinda pulls focus.) you use を for the object you are doing something with.
書く means “to write”, 描く is a compound of 書く (to draw) and 絵 (picture).
Slight correction:
書く (かく) is to write
描く (かく) is to draw
描く (えがく) is to draw a picture (combination of 絵 and 描く)
描きます (かきます) - I (will) draw
絵を描きます (えをかきます) - I (will) draw a picture)
[A] の絵を描きます ([A] のえをかきます) - I (will) draw a picture of [A]
描きます (えがきます) - I (will) draw a picture
[A] を描きます ([A] をえがきます) - I (will) draw a picture of [A]
の is used when you specify something. What kind of picture. You could also just say 何を描きますか。to say "What are you drawing?" without specifying it's a picture. 何は isn't really used anywhere I think, at least I don't know any sentence where I would say it.
Doesn't that "no" make the sentence mean "Will you draw a picture of what" instead of "What picture will you draw"?
- 534
Can I translate the sentence as "絵は何を描きますか？" ? This kind of sentence is on my mind as well. Or maybe "絵を何描きますか？" ?
何か means "something", so if you say 何か絵を描きますか, you're asking "will you draw something?" rather than asking what it is the person will draw.
- 217
Oh wait, that means I've got my answer. But I'm sure I saw an example that isn't with the word something....
Maggie-sensei talks about 何か here and maybe it can clear some things up:
The casual form of 何か = なにか ( = nanika ) something / anything
Ex. 何（なに）かお手伝いできることはありませんか？
= Nani ka otetsudai dekiru koto wa arimasen ka?
= Is there anything that I can do to help you?
→(casual speech)
- 何（なん）か手伝うことない？
= Nanka tetsudau koto nai?
Note: Since the kanji 何 can be read both なに ( = nani) and なん ( = nan), I will use hiragana from here on out.
Ex. 今、なんか言った？
= Ima, nanka itta ?
= Did you just say something?
Ex. なんかあったの？
= Nanka atta no?
= Has anything happened?
= What is wrong? / What happened?
Ex. なにか食べるものはありませんか？
= Nani ka taberu mono wa arimasen ka?
→(casual speech)
- なんか食べるものない？
= Nanka taberu mono nai?
= Is there anything to eat?
Ex. 京都に行くけど、なんか欲しいものある？
= Kyoutou ni iku kedo, nanka hoshii mono aru?
= I am going to Kyoto. Do you want anything (from there)?
Ex. あそこになんかいる*よ。
= Asoko ni nanka iru yo.
= There is something over there.
(* いる ( = iru) is for living things but なんか ( = nanka) is rude to use for people. You say 誰か ( = dare ka) )
Is 何 pronounced なん or なに?here? I'm always unsure which pronunciation is correct.
It's なん here because it's followed by の.
From italki:
I. If followed by a particle or copula(-da/desu),
-"Nan" before consonant [t], [d], [n]. "Nan-no" "Nan-desu-ka" "Nan-de" "Nan-to" etc.
In this case, when we want to emphasize that we are asking "WHAT," it's ok to pronounce as "Nani."
-"Nani" for all other cases. "Nani-ga" "Nani-wo" "Nani-mo" etc.
II. If followed by a counter(to ask "how many/much"), use "Nan".
"Nan-nin" "Nan-kai" "Nan-dai" "Nan-mai" etc.
III. If followed by a noun(to ask "what ....."), use "Nani."
"Nani-iro(what color)" "Nani-go(what language)"
IV. There are exceptions.
"Nan-youbi(what day of the week)"
What should i use- かき or えがき? Which one is more proper? Because i have heard both of them being used.
- 206
I wrote 何絵を描きますか？ (without the の) and it was accepted. But now that I look at it, it looks weird...
Is anybody just using Dou to learn? What else do you use and is it efficient?
- 705
I mostly use DuoLingo. (I am also humored that your typo is "dou" which is basically "how is it?") The curriculum itself gives me what is essentially worksheets and a bit of education, and the other users on the forums fill in a lot of the rest. It's kind of like a student-led class. In addition, I take notes in a notebook I keep by me while studying on here, and include new vocabulary and grammatical rules, and especially helpful nuances introduced by other users. However, I also practice listening via various methods, such as watching movies and TV series in Japanese, and getting tips and cultural information from various YouTubers (some are native, some are foreign residents.) Also, the culture is extremely folded into the language, so learning about one can help you with the other quite a bit.
Oh, I forgot to say this, but I also like to talk to myself in Japanese whenever I get the opportunity. So, for example, if I'm feeling sleepy, I may say "nemui..." and if I'm thinking about what I should eat, I may say "ima, nani wo taberu no?" Just little day-to-day things like that.
As for how effective it is, all of these methods combined together work well for me.
