Here’s a review question that made me question my assumptions about “anything” and “something”.
Shouldn’t “anything” be 何でも, while “something” is 何か? Or, are those two kind of interchangeable when used with a positive verb? Or is 何か used mostly for questions? I guess I’m just having trouble knowing the difference between those two (even after reading the readings for that grammar point).
RE: 何か vs. 何でも
何か means “something (that is either unknown or unspecified, but) specific.”
何でも means “anything/everything (nonspecific).”
RE: This review
何でも feels… weird here. It’d make the sentence seek a specific answer while using a nonspecific question word.
“When you go to Japan, is there anything you want to eat?”
This is arguably the most natural-sounding way to phrase the English translation of this Japanese sentence. We could change “anything” → “something” to more accurately reflect the Japanese sentence, but the problem I have with this is that doing so may only teach us how to translate “strange” English phrases into Japanese, and keep us from realizing the subtle adjustments we need to make to take natural English sentences into natural Japanese sentences.
I think we should throw a warning (and not mark the user wrong) for なんでも here, possibly even giving the “something” translation for the answer at that time.
Thanks Kai!
I’m definitely trying to keep up with the nuances, and that’s one thing I love about this site, it actually works those nuances into the reviews.
I’ve been researching the nuance of 何か and 何でも a bit more, and I think I’m understanding it a bit more now. I totally get your explanation… 何か “feels” specific.
I think instead of allowing なんでも as a correct or incorrect answer, it should not allow it, but then prompt that it’s looking for something “less specific” (as I think you’re also saying) - but then also modify the study points for those two words to mention specificity - or something similar.
I think the easiest way to conceptualize 何でも is with the common phrase, “なんでもいい.”
This is saying that “it” is いい no matter what 何 is, or regardless of 何.
If you take this understanding of なんでも and apply it to your review sentence, it should be clear why it doesn’t fit very nicely as the answer, haha.
Its the same as english, in that sentence both anything or something make sense. However keep in mind conjugations ending in か will always sound more natural in japanese when asking questions. 誰かに会いたいの？(Is there anyone you want to meet - specifically-). 誰もに会いたいの？(is there anyone - at all- that you want to meet). も just makes these type of questions sound really unnatural.
