Views from atop Marvel Hill

The following posts have no fixed theme or style, but I hope you enjoy reading them!

Tuesday, 23 December 2008

Question #1

This series will explore questions of all shapes and sizes. The question is a wonderful part of the English language. English is a good language for questions. In french, Es-ce que... (is it that...) is horrible and clumsy. Mandarin is no better, as far as I can tell from my limited knowledge. Ni hao means hello. Ni hao ma? has ma at the end, which means ** this is a question **, so that means how are you? It's pathetic. But English and German have it down to a tee and it is possible to phrase questions in elegant ways.

The purpose of a question is also a big part. It can be a life or death matter, it can be abstract and philosophical, it can portray any feeling or desire, it can be mundane, it can be easy or hard to answer... quite simply, they are fantastic.

My first question is this:

Have I got news for you?

PS Don't feel compelled to answer these questions unless they realy provoke a response. Sometimes they are rhetorical
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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

but you can make questions in french in other ways too. most of the ways that we can in english - there are masses of expressions, although i agree es-ce que can be a bit awkward sometimes. on the topic, spanish is quite confusing, as it is mostly done by going up at the end of the sentence. they've got question words like who, what, how much etc, but most questions don't use these. it's nice and easy when it's written down though, there are double question marks so that everyone's clear on exactly which part of the statement is in doubt. hope you are okies dude, xxx

8 February 2009 at 12:37

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