Raymond Ho
Is it impossibe to translate "第幾任" into English?

How would you translate the following Cantonese dialogue into English?

A: 奧巴馬係第幾任美國總統呀?

B: 第四十四任.

2016年5月29日 10:14
コメント · 7
1

After I posted this question, I found that it had been discussed in many forums and there are no definite answers. It seems there are different ways to express this idea in different regions and even among different people.

Phil, the Mandarin equivalent is the same, i.e. 第幾任(traditional) or 第几任(simplified).

2018年9月25日
1
English doesn’t have a dedicated  question word for ordinal numbers. Actually, I think most European languages lack such a word (what is the Mandarin equivalent of 第幾任?). In real life, the best option would probably be “what number president was Barack Obama?”

2018年9月25日
Thanks, Raymond, for the interesting information!
2018年9月26日

係Google淨係打"What number of president was" 就出現一堆名字

What number of president is Trump?

What number of president was obama?

我唔係講呢個係正確答案,因為很可能呢個問題冇一個正確答案!

2018年9月19日

Hello. There is no such expression in English. 

But you can translate that into the following sentences: 

1. What number president was Barack Obama? 

2. Which term of U.S President did Barack Obama serve as?

:)

2016年6月12日
さらに表示