何 placement when used in の中で〜が一番 and other grammar points

Hello, I am just confused relating to the placement of 何 when it comes to sentences, as I often see it in sentences such as:

“この中で一番好きな 食物は何” (didn’t see the broken furigana soz :sweat_smile:)

“中華料理の中で何が番好きですか”

“飲み物の中で一番好きなのは何ですか”

As I see how the 何 is very frequently in different positions and I was wondering if anyone had any insight? As this problem also appears in other grammar points as well.
Thanks in advance

If you need me to clarify what I mean in more depth just shoot a reply

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This is my first time trying to do an interpretation after a long break, so please be gentle with me if I’m horribly, horribly wrong people of WK :slight_smile:

I don’t think the ー番 matters here at all. The 1st and 3rd are instances of 何ですか (the ending copula is omitted in the first example), which in this structure means “of x, which is it (your favorite)?”

The 2nd instance is 何が(好き), which here is taken as “what about x (do you like)?”

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wow thanks! that actually makes alot of sense :sweat_smile: thanks for the help

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IF I’m right lol. Wait for smarter people than me to chime in.

Alright, thanks for the help anyway :upside_down_face:

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So, there are two basic types of sentences here.

この中で一番好きな 食たべ物もの何”
“飲み物の中で一番好きなの何ですか”

These two have は before the question word, which means they’re literally asking,
“Out of these things, when we’re talking about your favorite food, what is it?”
“Out of all of the kinds of drinks, when we’re talking about your favorite, what is it?”

(Of course we wouldn’t translate it that way - this is just to make the sentence structure clearer.)

So this is the exact same sentence structure that I’m sure you’ve seen a bunch of times before in phrases like

お名前はなんですか
その言葉の意味はなんですか

It’s just [topic] は [question word].
And the 何 goes in exactly the same place as if you were answering the question

この中で一番好きな 食たべ物ものは何
この中で一番好きな食べ物はアイスクリーム。

飲み物の中で一番好きなのは何ですか
飲み物の中で一番好きなのはオレンジジュースです。

This sentence is different because instead of は何, you have 何が.

“中華料理の中で何が一番好きですか”

Out of all the kinds of Chinese food, what is your favorite?

But the 何 is still in exactly the same place as it is when you’re answering the question.

中華料理の中で何が一番好きですか
中華料理の中で麻婆豆腐が一番好きです。

And so in that way it’s absolutely the same structure as if you were saying 音楽が好きです、犬が好きです、etc, it’s just that you’re replacing the thing you like with 何.

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In all of these cases the meaning of 何 is “what”:
“この中で一番好きな 食たべ物[ものは何”
Direct translation: Among these, what is the most liked food?
The deceptive part is perhaps the lack of a question mark?
I crossed out the たべ and もの which was incorrect. Perhaps a typo or a broken furigana?

Which other grammar points do you mean? Could you give an example?

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たべ, you missed this :wink:

Looks like a copy and paste job with furigana

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Oh whoops, sorry! Fixed it now.

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Yeah I didn’t point that part out because tabetabemonomono looked like a wild furigana had appeared and the only pokemon you had to battle it with was MissingNo :slight_smile:

I think my explanation was essentially the same as @fillanzea 's but more concise, as I couldn’t find a single example of a sentence ending with 何ですか that wasn’t also preceded by a は.

Only because you’re dropping the question particle; otherwise, the ending wouldn’t be the same. The topic marker attaches to the preceding word; not the following word, so the は particle doesn’t seem to me like it’s the determining factor here?

In either case they produce the same result; I am just curious about the semantics (and my explanation seems to accomplish the same thing with much less finger tappies) :slight_smile:

“中華料理の中で何が番好きですか” does not mean “what about Chinese food do you like?”, though. It means “Out of the different kinds of Chinese food, what is your favorite?”

“What about Chinese food do you like?” would be 中華料理のどこが好きですか.

Or am I misunderstanding what you mean?

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Oh I just noticed I left in the “what about”. I rearrange my statements a lot before I post them, and sometimes I don’t put them back together with the revisions in mind because I’m a doofus like that, but that doesn’t have anything to do with the grammar point in question? I thought the point being discussed was this line:

And I asked if the preceding は was actually the distinguishing factor or if it was 何ですか.

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