From forestine79:
hello friends,
i wrote "how is the life there" : do i better write "how is life there" ?
Thanks very much to that one that will give me the good sentence !
Hello dear Forestine79,
Congratulations! You are very active on the Forum.It means, among other goals, that you want to improve your English and you wondered whether you should ask: how is
the life or how is life. Don't use the article because you mean life IN GENERAL.
Actually, you should ask: what is life like over there?
We use HOW when you want to ask about people's health (How are you?) about people's reaction to their experiments (How is your job? I love it)
We use WHAT...LIKE when we want to have a description.
-What's the weather like?
-What's your mother like? She is small and shy( =physically+character)
-What DOES your mum LOOK like? She is a small blue-eyed lady, she has fair hair.
It means that a question can be be very accurate:
-How was the film? Great(=your reaction or impression)
-What is the film like? Long but the actors are great as well as the music.
So you see that it is sometimes possible to use both structures.
I hope you are not totally lost by now.Go on telling us how you are, what your area is like etc...
Bye for tonight Forestine.
Posts: 89
14 Sept. 2007