こんいちは！
I have 2 questions regarding the “structure” section of BP’s grammar explanation for this point.
Structure
- Verb (A) + か + Verb (B) + か
- ［い］Adjective (A) + か + ［い］Adjective (B) + か
- ［な］Adjective (A) + か + ［な］Adjective (B) + か
- Noun (A) + か + Noun (B) + か
First question is, does it always have to be a noun with a noun, an い adj with an い adj, etc?
Second question is, what is the second か after the Noun (B), Verb (B), etc? I don’t see that coming up in any of the examples.
ありがとう！
If I’m not mistaken, this should be for lists using か. In which case, it makes sense logically that they will be followed by similar types of words:
あのお店はカフェかレストランか分からない。
花について、美しいか綺麗か、どっちを言えばいいのだろう。
So either you use it to describe with two or more adjectives like the latter or attribute a noun like the former. There might honestly be some structures that combine, but I personally can’t think of any.
(Also of anyone knows more in depth or has any corrections for my sentences that’d be greatly appreciated! I don’t usually post help here so I’m just dipping my toes lol)
Not sure if my understanding is correct, as I am also a noob, but this is how I understand it.
This か is the equivalent of the question mark in this use case:
“Tell me what you want to eat. Pizza? Burger? Ramen?”
“Tell me what you want to eat. Pizzaか Burgerか Ramenか”
So there is a question mark / か after each listed item.
If I remember that lesson correctly, it says that in casual speech, the last か is often omitted. This would explain why it isn’t in any of the practice sentences.
In that case, the translation would be:
“Tell me what you want to eat. Pizza or Burger or Ramen?”
“Tell me what you want to eat. Pizzaか Burgerか Ramen?”
It makes sense in my brain, and I get the practice questions correct, but I might not have understood it 100%.
Just to add, I don’t think it necessarily has to be listing the same type of word, for example I could imagine mixing い and な adjectives if it made sense, but a sentence mixing for example a noun and an adjective, while it could possibly be grammatically correct, probably wouldn’t be a sensible sentence. For example: “Which do you prefer, flowers or blue?” is a strange question even though it’s grammatically correct.
Extra: It can only be use for picking one out of two choices not more
Haha you are so right! I should’ve thought that through… Thank you.
