1

Could you make my sentences correct please? I want to learn the general rule by that.

What do you think is the best restaurant in the town ?

What do you think what the best restaurant is in the town?

What do you think about how Alan is dealing the problems he faces?

What do you think when you are going to be home ?

What do you think when he will propose marriage to you?

what do you think where the best beaches are in the world?

Improve this question
4
  • Do you mean word order (in indirect speech)? Or some other rule? Because some sentences have other problems as well. E.g. No. 3 lacks a preposition (consider the difference between to deal and to deal with.
    – Lucky
    Apr 27, 2015 at 10:25
  • @Lucky I meant word order..I have some problems with prepositions sometimes .
    – Mrt
    Apr 27, 2015 at 10:27
  • well J.R. has got that one already, and I have nothing to add. Tip about the prepositions - you might use LDOCE they usually give most common usage of a verb with and without prepositions, with difference in meaning.
    – Lucky
    Apr 27, 2015 at 10:48
  • @Lucky actually I've just asked a question on J.R's answer. You can answer this question if you don't mind.
    – Mrt
    Apr 27, 2015 at 10:50

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
2

Don't say things like, "What do you think when...", say, "When do you think...":

When do you think you are going to be home?
When do you think he'll propose?

If you want to start with "What do you think..." and follow that up with a where or when question, make sure you include the word "about". So:

What do you think about where the best beaches in the world are?

or:

Where are the best beaches in the world?

Note: These are not necessarily the same question! Observe:

Q: Where are the best beaches in the world?
A: The best beaches in the world are in Hawaii, Sri Lanka, and Brazil.

Q: What do you think about where the best beaches in the world are?
A: I think those places tend to be too crowded, and I think the hotels there are too expensive.

Note: I could give the answer to the first question as my answer to the second question, but I could not give my answer to the second question as my answer to the first question.

Last note: I'm not going to fix these one-by-one, as that would be proofreading, and make this question off-topic.

Improve this answer
3
  • Thank you for the answer.It is very good answer :) Can I ask, do you ever get a sense of the sentence "Where are the best beaches in the world?" in the sentence " What do you think about where the best beaches in the world are?" ?
    – Mrt
    Apr 27, 2015 at 10:36
  • I mean the sentence " What do you think about where the best beaches in the world are?" could have double meaning if you can think in both way?
    – Mrt
    Apr 27, 2015 at 10:37
  • 1
    @Murat I think that J.R. already answered that - to the question "What do you think about where the best beaches in the world are" you could get both answers, it depends on how the person you are talking to interprets it. The first version (without what do you think about...) is not ambiguous :-)
    – Lucky
    Apr 27, 2015 at 11:00
0

In a lot of these cases, an alternative you have is to split the question into two parts. For example, you could make:

What do you think what the best restaurant is in the town?

Into:

What do you think: what is the best restaurant in (the) town?

The colon represents a pause, here. So, when you read this aloud, you will have:

What do you think [pause] what is the best restaurant in town?

The original ("What do you think what the best restaurant is in the town?") is not very natural in English. @J.R.'s answer is very good and explains everything well. With my alternative, you are asking for someone's opinion. You would use this where there isn't an objectively correct answer - it's a matter of taste. And you could use it, essentially, to show your interest in what the other person thinks. You could also use it, perhaps, to acknowledge that they might not agree with the opinion you've just given, e.g.:

I really like McDonald's. What do you think: what is the best restaurant in town?

It could also be seen as "softening" the question. You just want an opinion, you're not looking for a definitive answer.

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .