From Twitter
お選び下さい Toshi’s looking at a new electronic device at Big Camera. The only available clerk is Chinese; he doesn’t speak Japanese well.
Toshi must speak English. He should ask:
a. This is what?
b. What is this?
c. This what is?
d. What this is?
Clerk: It’s a router.
#英会話
Answer:
The best answer is: b. ‘What is this’; a. is okay, but is used in particular frames of minds and circumstances, not in common speech.
Explanation:
English is curious in this way, because the ‘what’ (the thing) is at the beginning in a question instead of the ‘this’ (as it is in the answer), and switches to the other side of the linking verb in the answer. This is different from Korean and Japanese, wherein the subject, whether it is known (‘a router’) or unknown (‘what’) stands in the same place in the sentence, whether it be the question or in the answer.
