The question "When are you in Berlin?" sounds, somehow, strange to me and informal. Is it OK to ask this way in a business environment or is there a better way?
2 Answers
What do you mean to ask?
When are you in Berlin?
This carries a little of the connotation that the person being questioned either has regularly scheduled visits to Berlin (response: "Every April and May") or has a longer itinerary already planned out, in which Berlin is a stop. (response: "After Holland and Zurich, but before Warsaw and Nagurskoye.")
If you are asking someone who is going to Berlin as a one off event, and not in the context of a longer trip, either When will you be in Berlin?
or When are you going to Berlin?
are more common. (AmE, West Coast)
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When are you in Berlin? can quite naturally refer to a one-off event in the right context.– tunnyNov 19, 2014 at 19:39
When will you be in Berlin? is an alternative, but I see nothing wrong with When are you in Berlin? There is nothing informal about it.