4.2. PARTICLES 159
In addition to all this, can be used to indicate a kind of rhetorical
question usually associated with mild scorn:
”How would I know?”This kind of expression is often derisive, made even stronger by
adding at the end:
”How the hell would you know [this]?”This use of is actually one of the few times when it’s okay to stick
an exclamation mark in the translation, as it is virtually always accompa-
nied by a raised voice.
Using with interrogatives There is one more thing we need to look at
when looking at , and that concerns its combination with interrogatives.
When paired with an interrogative (words such as ’how’, ’why’, ’when’,
’where’, etc) the particle creates a vaguely specific answer to that inter-
rogative. The easiest way to understand what that means is to just look at
what happens:
interrogative meaning with meaning
what something
who someone
where somewhere
when sometime, eventually
why for some reason
how in some way or anotherThese words act as nouns, and can be used like any other noun in
sentences:
”(I)’ll become good (at it) eventually.”