how to make a sentence which should be answered with ordinal numbers?

[Brianmail]

Please help me :
What would the following sentence mean or is it gramatically correct?

Which time is this for you to come to China?


Thank you!

[Yankee]

Hi brianmail

No, don't use that sentence.

If the person is currently in China, I'd suggest this:
- How many times have you been to China now?

If the next visit to China is still upcoming, you might say this:
- How many times have you already been to China?
(If the answer is "Five", then you know that the upcoming visit will be the sixth.) :wink:

If the next visit to China is still upcoming, then you might also say this, for example:
- This (next visit) will make how many visits to China for you?
.
_________________
"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power." ~ Abraham Lincoln

[Brianmail]

Hi,Amy,

So great to receive your so prompt answer.And I'm really glad to know you on the net.
I think your answer is quite clear and right.But actually ,oh,jeez,this is really what intrigued me for quite a while,I mean,you know,I'm a Chinese,so I like to compare Chinese with English.In Chinese language,we have a kind of interrogation that directly points to how many times of a particular event, no matter it's current or past or future,I mean no matter which event it is.And most importantly,the answer to this kind of interrogation must be an ordinal number,like fifth,or sixth,etc.So, back to the three sentences you gave,they all should be answered with a cardinal number,like five ,or six ,etc. right?So,this is what amazes me.So,maybe,you can provide me another kind of expression in English that can solve this question?

Thank you so much!

[Yankee]

Hi brianmail

Nice to meet you, too. :D
I see your English is already very good, so this question must be driving you crazy.

There are some things that simply cannot be translated too directly, and I think this is one of them.
I've been asked this question before, but the only thing that comes to mind (which might specifically elicit an ordinal number) would be something like this:

- "Is this your first visit to China?" / "Will this be your first visit to China?"
- "This is your tenth visit to China, isn't it?" / "This will be your tenth visit to China, won't it?"
- "So, this is/will be, what, your sixth visit to China now?" (spoken English)

In other words, you would have to specifically mention/estimate an ordinal number in your question, after which the other person would have to either confirm your ordinal or correct it.

People would not expect anyone to ask "This is your how-many-eth visit to China?" "How-many-eth" is not really a word in English. It's an invention -- I just made it up. Getting that creative with the language runs a high risk of being misunderstood/incomprehensible -- especially if spoken with an accent that the listener isn't terribly comfortable with. Saying or writing it may also suggest to the other person that you don't know how to ask the question the "right" way in English.

So, in a nutshell, my recommendation is this: Ask a question designed to elicit a cardinal number (i.e. how many times). This can also result in a response with an ordinal number:

Q: How many times have you been to China?
A: Oh, this is my sixth time.
.
_________________
"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power." ~ Abraham Lincoln

[Brianmail]

Hi,Amy,
Oh,you really gave an very inspiring and interesting answer!I'm so glad to know a net friend like you.Thank you very much!
Actually,I love English language very much.And I'm interested in something beyond the language itself.I mean,actually,at first,to my knowlege I supposed that the English language might not have that kind of interrogation which I mentioned in my prior post,but you know,as I've been living in the Chinese speaking environment though I've devloped a mastery of the English language ,I'm still not quite sure whether the native English speaker has a kind of expression of that nature .So,I came to this website to seek help.
I noticed that you are an ESL teacher, translator, and a native speaker of American English,which is indicated under your name on the page,right?That's great.I think your answer must be really authoritative,which inspired me a lot.Thank you indeed!As I'm really interested in things related with English language,culture or thinking,I think you can help me with many things in those fields.

In addition,as to the question I mentioned in my earlier posts,actually it initially started from a simple idea of mine .The idea is that I think all humans' thinking is basically the same.So when I noticed that Chinese language has that kind of expression,I automatically thought that
the English language must have some similar expression.You know,I'm just curious about that, though ,technically ,personally as a veteran English pursuer,I can't thought of any way of expression that may meet my own standards. Here through your kind help,it's may be right time for me to make some sumups as follows:
1.People wherever they are from share almost the same basic thinking approaches though they may use vastly different languages which is really amazing.
2.But because of the language difference which inevitably affects people's thinking,people have some evidently different thinking modes which is really amazing as well,for the whole human civilization is just created by all the diversified peoples.
I always think it's great fun to recognize and talk about this kind of things in culture or thinking ,etc.And this kind of things ,I think,suggest a lot more than what people may first perceive.I mean I believe some social or cultural or economic or whatever differences between the east and west or whatever have subtle and clear fundamental causes in some seemingly very simple and little phenomenon.Take the little lingustic differenc we were earlier talking about for instance,actually I perceive it as a "culprit" which accounts for an array of funny,intriguing and significant phenomena between the east and west,which is really to my amazement.And I'd like to share much more about this with you later on,if you like.

Alright,it's great pleasure to talk with you.I'm just looking forward to something more interesting or revealing or funny coming out from our talk in the future.

Thank you very much!

Brian

[Yankee]

Hi Brian

[Brianmail]

Hi,Amy,
Wow,18 years English teaching experience!No wonder your answers are really revealing!Thank you!
Okay,here,let's talk about,if you like,you know I'm a little curious about this,why English language can't have its own word like "Many-eth"?I mean,first,people who speak English must feel the same neccesity to express that "many-eth" meaning,right?second,why it's just because of some reason like what you explained in your earlier posts that it's just not a word in English or pronunciation of that word is hard to understand? I mean words ,fundamentallyl,are created by necessity,aren't they?Why can't such a muture language as English create that necessary word ?And what's odd or odder to me is that many other languages like Germany,Chinese etc.already have that words and why English just can't come up with a counterpart word leaving this obvious expression gap open.And if ever ,what kind of psychological phenomenon is behind this?
Oh,as a matter of fact,to be true with you, i'm not a guy who's particularly interested in perfectly exact translation or something.I'm just a little wondering about that as a phenomenon in language or thinking or whatever.That's it!

So,I figure there must be many other interesting things in language or thinking differences between peoples in the world.
Oh,I wanna add something more here.I find in terms of thinking habbit or something,Aemrican people seem sharing quite a lot of same or similar things with Chinese people though these two peoples do differ in many things.To name a few here,both peoples seem being quite pragmatical about things,like to be free and interested in new things. Maybe the most remarkable difference between them is the idea about individuality.I mean,american people,yeah,generally,are much more individual,and Chinese people,yeah,are kind of ,hazily individual,oh..more collectivistic?Oh,hard to describe it exactly.
I'm from middle China.I've been training people on English for about 5 years.I'm more and more interested in things that are cross such fields as culture,lanugage,media,entertainment ,creativity industry and whatever.So, I kindof like to stretch my talk across a range of fields.what about you?I'm really curious about a lot of things about american people who are always referred to as creative,opmistic,interesting etc.
So,hope to exchange much more with you on a wider variety of fields later on!
It's fun.
Thank you.
Brian

[Yankee]

Hi Brian

Thanks for your interesting post.

[Brianmail]

Hi Amy
Great,I think your analysis is quite spot on.Thank you!
And,let's shift to another topic,would you? I got very interesting questions here about creation and planning which is maybe a little odd to you at first sight.Let me get it simple:
Creation is about making something new,but as we all know,that definitely involves uncertainty right because no one on the earth can one hundred percent guarantee a particular new thing will definitely happen at a particular point of time in the future,no one can do that,right?In other words,say,if I plan to create a new type of laptop in 2012 that can talk to me like an intelligent human,okay,I just can plan it,I can't guarantee that in 2012 that type of laptop will definitely come into the world though I will actually do whatever it'll take to realize it,right?So,I'm curious about how corporations in america can create so many new products all along its history on a quite regular basis which seem like well arranged to happen.Look,all those modern stuffs like,electric light,films,telephone,planes,tv ,internet so on and so forth came to being in history one after another.It's like you never need to worry there won't be any new things coming out down the road.So,my question is do you american people ever worry about the costs or risks involved in creating something new which is not sure to happen in future ?Or,in other words,do you people ever make plans before creating new things since you guys seem to be creating all the time?Or,what do you think of the relationships between planning and creation?
Say, you can plan something,but it's not sure to happen
you don't plan something,but it's not sure not to happen

So,how can people make real creative things happen right as scheduled which is key to win in modern competition as time element always plays a crucial role in any commercially valid games?
Oh, hope I'm not confusing the questions I'd ask.

Looking forward to your ideas.

Brian

[Brianmail]

hi,Amy,
How are you doing?What's going on?Any thing hot out there?Please join me talking about the cultral things,entercation stuff,and whatever hot thing!
Come on,how about these topics like how to create new things if without what-it'll -take?how to avoid bordom in making a speech?how to assess the impact of the popularity of the english language on the developing countries?and so on and on...
Have a good day!
Brian