(どう、か、が、と) how do these things work in this sentence?

[scallions]

What’s up.

I’m currently working through the book Essential Japanese Grammar from Tuttle and am at the section about grammar particles. This sentence I’m working with right now is in the section about conjunctional particles:

明日の天気はどうか分かりませんが、多分晴れると思います。

In bold are the parts I don’t quite get. I understand ga and to here to an extent, but the dou and ka part come off as alien to me. A breakdown of the three would be appreciated. Thanks.

[SleepyOne]

I believe the どうか part is sort of like asking a question within that sentence. It’s basically discussing how the weather may be tomorrow.

明日の天気は - As for tomorrow’s weather
どうか - How will it be? With どう as “what” or “how” and か as the question marker
分かりません - I don’t know
が - But
多分晴れる - It’ll maybe/probably clear up
と思います - I think

The が is your standard “but” that serves as a conjunction to join two sentences together. The と particle is often used with verbs like 思う and 言う as a quotation particle. In this sentence it’s used to quote 多分晴れる as what you think the weather might be like tomorrow.

Does that make sense?

[scallions]

ありがと ！(⁀ᗢ⁀)

[crihak]

In case it wasn’t clear, I’ll just add that you often use か to sort of pose “rhetorical quesions” like this, in combination with 分かる or 知る.

母はどこにいるか分からない don’t know where mom is
これができるか分からない don’t know if (someone) can do this
宝はどこか知っているよ (someone) knows where the treasure is!

etc.

So you’re basically first posing the question 天気はどうか and then saying you don’t know.

This was a lot clearer in my head… I hope it was of some help

EDIT: also, nobody saw me talking about treasure as if it was a sentient being! I’d never do that!

[scallions]

What exactly is ‘どう’? @SleepyOne mentioned it was sort of like ‘what’. Is this the same ‘どう’ from ‘かどうか’? Does anyone have a dictionary link? This is the closest I could find.

[crihak]

どう means “how”. “How will tomorrow’s wheather be”.

So Xかどうか is like asking “If X or how”. It means something like “whether or not”

できるかどうか分からない don’t know whether (I) can do it or not

EDIT: yep, the link you found is the right word

[SleepyOne]

Like @crihak said, どう is “how” or “in what way.” Think of it sort of like the question words in English - “who”, “what”, “when.” In Japanese, you have “D” words like だれ, どこ, どう, etc.