(if eating started at 7:00 AM and finished at 7:30 AM)
i was drinking when he eats .
When is this "eats"?
i was drinking when he eats for 10 minutes.
When is this "eats"?
i was drinking when he had eaten.
When is this "eaten"?
i was drinking when he had eaten for 10 minutes.
...
This question seems very country/culture rather than language specific.
In the UK (as the question is tagged 'British English') if you said 'meat' you could never expect the other person to know what you mean exactly.
You might get asked the question "Would you like meat or fish?" as some peop...
@Dam Greetz! Mincemeat has several meanings. One of which is anything cut up into small pieces. Often it means apples, raisins, candied fruits, etc, used as pie filling, British.
@Chenmunka, I can ask "What's your name?" to a pet. I want a way to send a respect position to the listener even before meeting him. — biotech9 hours ago
A native speaker would say
1) At 7:00, I ate breakfast for 30 mins
2) I ate breakfast for 30 mins from 7:00
3) I ate breakfast for 30 mins until 7:30
I think it's interesting how #1 has the same words as your example only rearranged
Apparently, I ate breakfast for 30 minutes is acceptable.
Back to this question. I think the OP has a misconception about formality in English.
They seem to come up with a phrase in their first language first (¿como se llama (usted)?) and then looked for an equivalent sentence in English.
I believe that language doesn't work that way.
Formality isn't universal across languages.
For example, just thinking about it quickly, I figured that Thai has about 20 pronouns for "you", 2 nouns for "name" (I don't count words used in the highest register), and lots of particles that could bend the tone of a sentence.
So, let's say that I can construct about 100-200 alternatives for "What's your name?" in Thai. I think I'd translate all of them to English as "What's your name?"
"May I ask your name?" also works in Thai (ขอถามชื่อหน่อยได้ไหมครับ). Still, it doesn't work on all occasions.
Syntactically, I think I can construct perhaps a few thousand ways for asking the someone's name in Thai.
Almost all of them are unidiomatic.
Some of them might be idiomatic in another century.
(if eating started at 7:00 AM and finished at 7:30 AM)
i was drinking when he eats .
When is this "eats"?
i was drinking when he eats for 10 minutes.
When is this "eats"?
i was drinking when he had eaten.
When is this "eaten"?
i was drinking when he had eaten for 10 minutes.
...
This question seems very country/culture rather than language specific.
In the UK (as the question is tagged 'British English') if you said 'meat' you could never expect the other person to know what you mean exactly.
You might get asked the question "Would you like meat or fish?" as some peop...
A native speaker would say
1) At 7:00, I ate breakfast for 30 mins
2) I ate breakfast for 30 mins from 7:00
3) I ate breakfast for 30 mins until 7:30
I think it's interesting how #1 has the same words as your example only rearranged
I would like to ask "what's your name" in a formal way.
I want the equivalent in English of "¿como se llama (usted)?" Spanish question.
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