I was reading genki 1 lesson 1 and an example sentence was 専攻は何ですか which means “what is your major.” Then I watched tokini andy’s youtube video on the same lesson. He gave the example “name” は何の仕事ですか which means “what is your work.” Can you ask the same question with both formats like in the title? Are there different cases where you would use one or the other?
3 comments
“name” は何の仕事ですか just seems really awkward to me. Is it just because it is a beginner course or is this the kind of construction that someone is proud of using as an example?
`”name” は何の仕事ですか` does not directly translate `”what is your work”` – you can use it interchangeably but giving it no further explanation is confusing
it’s roughly `”name, what job?”`
as in `”hey name, what’s (your) job?”` but one doesn’t use pronouns like “your” in japanese very often, so the word isn’t there
`”what is your work?”` would be closer to `”name”の仕事は何ですか`, or even more directly, it would be `”name”‘s work is what?`
you could say `”name” は何の専攻ですか` as an alternative for `専攻は何ですか`
one is closer to `”hey name, what major?”` vs `”major is what?”`
tho i agree with SmittyJP above that it sounds stiff, but as a purely grammatical example of moving word order around, it’s fine
Makes me feel uncomfortable that Genki is teaching that. 何勉強してるの is about 8,000 times more natural…