• jmcs@discuss.tchncs.de
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      1 year ago

      In Spanish questions are phrased the same way as affirmations, when you are speaking the only difference is the intonation. Without a mark to say you are starting to read a question it’s possible that the meaning changes in the end which would be annoying. (Source: Portuguese is the same but has no inverted question mark, and sometimes it’s mighty annoying, especially with long questions)

      • DreamButt@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Funny enough English does this all the time:

        • That’s food.
        • That’s food!
        • That’s food?
        • That’s food?!
        • That’s food…

        All have different intonations and punctuation but are otherwise the same. Internet lingo does compensate for this somewhat but at least in “proper” form the above holds true for all kinds of situations

        • schmidtster@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          1 Food that is edible

          2 Tasty food

          3 Bad looking food

          4 Either happy or disgusted at what was just in your mouth

          5 Defending your cooking after it’s referred to as 1-4

        • jmcs@discuss.tchncs.de
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          1 year ago

          Imagine if you could ask questions like “James, Mary, and Jack went to the market last Saturday to buy a shovel, a black bag, and some gloves, to bury Karen’s corpse in the deep dark woods?”

          • Metal Zealot@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            No no no, James, Mary, and Jack went to the market last Saturday to buy a shovel, a black bag, and some flashlights, to bury Karen’s corpse in the deep dark woods

        • margaritox@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          English can do that too, but it’s not really a “proper” way of doing it. The proper way would be to say “is that food?”

          There are languages where the only way to pose a question is to change the intonation.

          • Littleborat@feddit.de
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            1 year ago

            But doesn’t the intonation simply go up in the end? So it’s good enough to stumble over the ? in the end.

            • margaritox@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              I honestly haven’t paid attention where it starts going up. But I always thought that doing the two “?”s in Spanish was pretty clever for that reason.

      • octoperson
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        1 year ago

        Portuguese is the same but has no inverted question mark, and sometimes it’s mighty annoying,

        ¿What if you just used them anyway?
        ¡Problem solved!

      • Kidplayer_666@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        É de facto irritante. Nada como estar na escola e um prof pede para ler. Estás calmamente a ler o texto e de repente tens de forçar a porcaria da entoação para sobrecompensar o facto de que não reparaste que era uma pergunta

      • magnetosphere@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        This can’t be right. It’s far too simple and logical. I’m a native English speaker, and I’m used to grammar that’s nonsensical and inconsistent.

      • araozu@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        In spanish questions intonation changes occur only on the last word(s), not the whole sentence. I’m not a linguistic, but I think it’s so you can be sure a sentence is a question from the start.

        When reading english sometimes I assume a sentence is an affirmation until I see the question mark, and then I have to reinterpret the sentence. I wonder how it is for native english speakers. Do they assume nothing until the sentence is finished?

        • lorty@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          You are indeed right, my explanation was poor. But for other languages it is very common to get surprised at the end of sentences, yes.

        • dustyData@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          In English most questions stay flat and only raises the pitch on the last syllable, if any. In Spanish we can raise the pitch on the first word and stay flat for the rest of the question. That’s what’s useful about the ¿

          • araozu@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            Solo me fijé en la ultima palabra, no en la primera. Tal vez nunca me di cuenta que si cambia