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- "Which one will you eat?"
"Which one will you eat?"
Translation:どれを食べますか?
90 Comments
42
Exactly right えくせくたり(exactly) らいた(right) I also use Gboard Its really helpful to seitch between languages Also if you want to know what is the meaning of 水(みず) , you can see it in gboard by translating it from Japanese to english.
Subject-Object-Verb
The usual order in English is Subject-Verb-Object, in contrast. (Although it doesn't have to be and you can construct proper sentences in any order you want.)
For example, consider the sentence, "I eat meat." 'I' is the subject, 'eat' is the verb, and 'meat' is the object in this case. In Japanese, this sentence would be "(わたしは) にくを食べます." わたし is the subject (but would usually be omitted in Japanese), にく is the object, and 食べます is the verb.
They mark different parts of speech so switching them would change the meaning of the sentence.
This is a frequently answered question on this page
https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/23785972?comment_id=48459029
https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/23785972$comment_id=46984188
https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/23785972$comment_id=34791281
I agree that は doesn't work here but I don't think this explanation is completely correct. は is the topic marker, not the subject marker (that would be が). The topic marker is used for things known to the listener. So, if you're already talking about the topic of meat, you could say 肉は食べます (Talking about meat, I eat it). However, this doesn't work for question words like どれ. The question is not whether or not you're eating. The question is WHAT you're eating. And that thing will be new information, so it wouldn't have been the topic before.
AdamHill, I'm curious about that, too. In the simplest of all worlds, if a statement is made and no other topic or subject is stated, watashi (I) is understood from context. In the case of a question being asked, and no topic or subject is stated, I believe we are to assume anata (you). I don't yet know how "can" vs. "will" is stated, so maybe someone will address that.
Japanese makes a distinction between "ability to/potential to" and "allowance to/permission to". If you want to ask for permission, you can use the te form + もいいですか? If you want to ask if you are physically able to do something (i.e eat something without dying, run a very long distance), you would use the potential form (for 食べる, it's 食べられる).
This sentence isn't in potential/passive form so there isn't a reason for Duo to explain it just yet
どれを食べますか "Which one will (you) eat?" is in simple present/future tense.
Duolingo by default assumes a two-person conversation so unless otherwise clarified a statement is assumed "I" and a question is assumed "you". In context this could be "Which one will I eat" but that isn't really a normal question to ask unless you're talking to yourself, in which case you also wouldn't be using the polite -masu form.
Adam was specifically asking if "Which one can I eat?" would be the same or not and jmortiger explained why it would be different.
In order to ask for permission or to talk about potential a different verb conjugation would be required, so "can I" would not be an acceptable answer for this question.
どれを食べてもいいですか - Which one may (I) eat (Which one is okay if I eat it? Which one do I have permission to eat?)
どれが食べられますか - Which one can (I) eat (Which one do I have the ability to eat? Which one is edible?)
The verb is unrelated as to whether it is "I / you / he / she / they". The pronoun is determined through context.
どれはたべますか is considered wrong.
In the small lesson of this unit it says that in negative sentences as well as in questions, を should be replaced by は.
For the exercise "What is that ?", the answer was あれは何ですか. Help T.T
Needless to say, I am quite confused here. Is it a mistake from DL, or have I missed something ?
どれは is wrong because you cannot use は to mark the unknown, that goes against the concept of topic, in this case どれ is a question word for "which". A topic in Japanese is common knowledge between the speaker and the listener, so when you ask "which one?" is something you don't know and that cannot be a topic, so you use を.
When using negative sentences, the usual is to use は because you want to stress that you don't drink Aは for example (but you might drink something else).
When making a question, the Japanese ear also expects は because you are asking something and the important part is what you want to ask about the topic, not the topic itself.
あれ is not an unknown concept, it is not a question word. You know what "that" is, a placeholder name used to identify a specific person or thing observed by the speaker, while you don't know what the thing being named "that" is, you know what "that" as a concept is. Question words are things like 何、どれ、誰、どっち、どこ、いつ。Anything you can add a ? at the end and have it be a full sentence どれ?~ 何?
And would あれを何ですか be correct ?
you are not acting on あれ (you need a verb for that) so not, is not what you are looking for, you are just mentioning「あれは」"as for that"「何ですか?」"what is it?". You can even say 何ですか? without mentioning the topic, or 何? as I mentioned above.
が marks a "doer" or a "be-er" of a sentence while を marks a direct object
「私が食べる」"I will eat rice" (the doer in this case is "I"... "I" is the actor of the sentence which does the action "to eat", this is usually implicit)
「ご飯が冷たい」"the rice is cold" (the "be-er" is rice)
「ご飯を食べる」"(I) eat rice" (the direct object which the subject will eat, is rice)
1192
Nope, を (o) can be used in pretty much anywhere as long as it involves a direct object that receives an action (verb), like getting rice, and drinking water or tea.
Just keep in mind that whatever noun preceding the particle receives it.
It's the same for basically every particle. は (wa), を (o), whatever the particle is. The preceding noun is what the particle to which it is pointing for its meaning. If it's は, then in 私は。, then subject is 私 (わたし).
I said basically, meaning most particles, not all.
Basically, the context.
In Japanese, there are only two verb tenses: past and non-past. Non-past indicates both present and future. This means that the same sentence often has two possible translations. You can understand if it is being used for the present or future by the context of the sentence.
I found this brief explation on PuniPuniJapan.
421
The previous one was "どれは飲みますか", so what's the difference between wo and wa in this context?
は marks the topic, which is old/known information that provides context for the statement you are about to make
Since どれ "which one" is a question word, it is inherently an unknown so it can't be marked as the topic
を is used to mark the direct object of the action, the unknown thing"which one" that the verb "eat" will act on
It is the same difference between これ・この and それ・その, etc
これ、それ、あれ、どれ are pronouns. They stand in for another noun. "This thing" "That thing" that thing over there" and "what thing?"
この、その、あの、どの are modifiers. (They are contractions of the pronoun + の). These must be paired with a noun. このペン (This pen)、その本 (That book)、あの車 (That car)、どの机 (Which desk?)
Here the object that you are choosing to eat is unknown so it is replaced with どれ "what/which one?"
どっち、こっち、そっち are shortened slightly more informal forms of どちら、こちら、そちら. (Small っ not う)
These are ko-so-a-do words used to talk about direction.
こちら・こっち - "This way" (towards me)
そちら・そっち - "That way" (towards you)
あちら・あっち - "That way" (Away from us both)
どちら・どっち - "Which way?" (Can also be used to mean "which" between two alternatives)
どれ - which
を - object particle
食べます - (will) eat
Since you have a question word in your sentence though you should end it with か, the question particle. Informally spoken you could indicate the question with your intonation though then you would also use the plain form of the verb rather than the polite form used here.
Not quite, the こ equivalent of どんな would be こんな "like this"
The ど equivalent of この is どの "which (noun)"
Referring to a thing:
これ - This thing (pronoun)
この - This (noun) (pre-noun adjective)
To a location:
ここ - Here (this place)
こちら・こっち - This way (direction)
To a method/type:
こんな - Like this/in this way (type) (pre-noun adjective)
どれ - Which one (pronoun)
どの - Which (noun) (pre-noun adjective)
どこ - Where (what place)
どちら・どっち - Which way (direction) - This can also mean "which one" if there are less three or fewer choices available.
どんな - What kind/like what (type) (pre-noun adjective)
If you had a series of things, you could say
- テーブルはどれですか - Which one is the table? [As for tables][Which one is it] - the answer would be to indicate which one is the table.
- どのテーブルですか - Which table is it? [Which table][Is it] - the answer would be to indicate which specific table among a group of tables it is.
- どんなテーブルですか - What kind of table is it? - the answer here would be to tell what type of table it is. Is it a large table, a small table, round, square, a single leg or four legs, etc.
- テーブルはどちらですか - Which way (which one) is the table? - the answer would pick a table among only a small amount of choices. Like "do you want this one, or that one"
どれを食べますか - Which one will you eat?
どちらを食べますか - Which will you eat? (between two choices)
どの寿司を食べますか - Which sushi will you eat?
どんな寿司を食べますか - What kind of sushi do you eat?
を marks the direct object of the verb. In "which one will you eat" you want to know what the object of the action "eat" is
が marks the do-er or be-er of the action (the subject). Using it here would change the question to "which one will eat", wanting to know what thing will be eating something else.
answered a few times on this page
https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/23785972$comment_id=46984188
を marks the direct object of the verb. In "which one will you eat" you want to know what the object of the action "eat" is
が marks the do-er or be-er of the action (the subject). Using it here would change the question to "which one will eat", wanting to know what thing will be eating something else.
https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/23785972$comment_id=34791281
が marks a "doer" or a "be-er" of a sentence while を marks a direct object
「私が食べる」"I will eat rice" (the doer in this case is "I"... "I" is the actor of the sentence which does the action "to eat", this is usually implicit)
「ご飯が冷たい」"the rice is cold" (the "be-er" is rice)
「ご飯を食べる」"(I) eat rice" (the direct object which the subject will eat, is rice)
It would change the meaning of the sentence,
が marks the do-er or be-er of an action, the subject
を marks the thing being acted on, the direct object
どれを食べますか Which one will you eat? - Which object receives the action of "eat" by someone
どれが食べますか Which one will eat? - Which thing performs the action of "eat" to something else
犬が猫を食べます - The dog (subject) eats the cat (object)
犬を猫が食べます - The cat (subject) eats the dog (objects)