Do you know my father?

質問

• When I was in junior high school, I received a low score on a translation problem that asked me to translate the English sentence "Do you know my father?" into Japanese as "うちの父を知りませんか？" The problem was that I omitted the word "you" and translated "my" as "うちの." However, the biggest problem is that the translation turned an affirmative question in English into a negative question in Japanese.
• While it is possible to have negative interrogative sentences in English, using "Don't you know my father?" would change the nuance to "Don't you know my father?" So my question is, how can we reflect the nuance of "うちの父を知りませんか？" in an English sentence?
• This question may seem trivial, but it raises an important point about translation and nuance in different languages. Translating a sentence accurately requires understanding not only the words but also the cultural and linguistic nuances.

回答No.2

207eden

色々なシチュエーションがあると思いますが、

（１）目を放したすきに行方不明になって焦ったときなどは、

Do you know anything of him? ( Him が父なのは自明ということで）。

（２）既知かどうかを単純に尋ねる場合は、質問者さんのニュアンスで、

Do you know my father.

（３）午前中の父の動向を、お昼頃に他者に尋ねるような場合は、単純に過去形で良いと思います。

Did you see my father?

他の回答者さんのように

Have you seen my father / have you seen him?

などが分かりやすい表現かもしれませんね。

参考になれば幸いです。