Good at English? What's the best way to ask this?

[BadLad]

Answer: I am my parents' third son.

What's the question that is answered with the above information?

I can think of lots of long-winded, clumsy ways, but there must be an eloquent question for it.

Any ideas?

What a weird phrase. Anyway...

"Have you many brothers and sisters?"

"Have you any siblings?"

"How many children did your parents have?"

The trouble with the "answer" is that it's oddly specific. It could be much better as

"I am my parents third child" then that wouldn't mean that the question should ideally include the possibility of sisters.

As it stands, the only real way to ask the question is

"Have your parents got both boys and girls? How many?"

Which is still not good enough AND it's two questions!

"Where are you in the birth order of your parents' children?"

Is all I can think of now.

Can I ask what this is for? Where did the question come from? It's a terrible one!

"Where are you in the birth order of your parents' children?"

That's more or less what I got.

It came up because I met three brothers recently, whose names were Koichiro, Shojiro and Saburo (they're Japanese), and their names include the characters for one, two and three, because they are the first, second and third sons. That got me wondering how the hell one could ask the question in English.

Oh God...it's not really relevant to the English language or culture then.

One wouldn't ask the question in English basically!

...which son are you then?

But...weird

What is your ordinal position in the family?

Would you incorporate birth order in naming children? Unless you are Louis xiv.

Reminds me of Stardust. I think you'd just ask "are you an eldest son?" (Or second or third or whatever you might have guessed.)

But such things are important in east Asian culture in a way they aren't in English speaking ones. So there's no natural way of asking, because we wouldn't ask.

We would say "I have two older brothers" or "I'm the youngest of three brothers" and the question would just be "do you have brothers and sisters?" and "are they older or younger than you?"

What’s your position in the family?

Which child are you?

Thanks. Looks like there isn't a perfect way then. I'll stop wondering.

Do you have older brothers?

Skiing that's about as good as it gets I think!

I've wondered about this before.

It's a fascinating cultural insight because there's no natural way to ask it in English without sounding like you're composing a question for an exam paper unless you're speaking about someone who was the son of the current monarch! In which case, it would be "where are you in the line of succession?"

Amazing how culture shapes language, isn't it?

Otherwise, I suppose "how many children did your parents have before you?" gets you the same information from a commoner .