Quick question, how would you translate the following?
すみません、あのペンは何ですか。
I have two versions.
First: excuse me. Is this obeje t iver there a pen?
Second: excuse me. What kind of pen is this pen over there?
I tried a word by word translation here to make あの clear. So which version is the correct one? I tend more to version 2
It‘s from an card by the jalup beginners course. There are no translation for the whole sentence, only for the new word, grammar point or whatever is introduced on that card. So it‘s always a bit like a riddle, which actually is a nice thing, cause one invest more time thinking about the given sentence from the beginning.
I had some problems with this sentence, though, because of the 何ですか part. Didn‘t saw this construct before
Generally speaking, if you are writing in polite Japanese (as implied by the use of です) you should mark all questions with か, even if they include question words that make their meaning unambiguous without it.