#maple_bread

1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

celest aspenBOT
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Please be patient

Our volunteers look into many questions every day; sometimes it takes them a little while to answer.

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Make it descriptive, including relevant context, but also to the point. This way you improve your chances of getting a more relevant and specific answer.

naive isle
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So, from a certain perspective it is just, "that's the way it is"

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And it does indicate some degree of surprise

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You can use the same construction for lots of things, "qu'est-ce que c'est que l'amour" -> "what is love, really?"
"qu'est-ce que c'est que le communisme ?" -> "what is communism, really?"

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where both of those sentences have less surprised equivalents if you say, "qu'est-ce que l'amour ?" -> what is love
"qu'est-ce que le communisme ?" -> what is communism
both of the above are a bit formal, though so you can also say,
"qu'est-ce que c'est, l'amour ?"
"qu'est-ce que c'est, le communisme ?"

brave parrot
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Okay, thank you. I have come across this only, as far as I know, in a book, so maybe that's why it's more formal? (Even though it's been in dialogue between characters). Thanks for your reply. Could you equally omit the comma to just directly ask like "what is communism?"?

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This phrase really confuses me how it even came about to be honest. Like if you make a (grammatically correct) direct translation to English, it's really "What is it that it is that that is?". It's hard to understand how this developed as the way to ask a question in a language.

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And a real direct translation is omitting the final "is" there. I know direct translations aren't particularly useful, it's just very interesting from a historical perspective.

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As an English speaker this is a super confusing construction

brave parrot
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From the usage I've seen

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Thank you for your reply

naive isle