"nan" in "kore wa nan desu ka"


How do you translate the "nan" in "kore wa nan desu ka" from rōmaji to kanji?

Is "これわなんですか" correct?




First of all, the writing system you are refering to is `hiragana`. Not
`kanji`. And no, it would not be これわなんですか。

The correct way to write it would be this:

これはなんですか。

The only real difference here is that the は character, pronounced "ha"
normally, is being used as a subject particle in this sentence. So is
therefore pronounced "wa" and written as "wa" in Romaji.

Another example is the word こんにちは (konnichiwa) which uses the "ha" character
as a "wa", but in this case is not a subject marker.

Seperated into seperate words, your sentence is this:

Hiragana: これ は なん です か

Romaji:....kore....wa...nan....desu....ka

English:....This...*.......what....is**....***

So your sentence literally means: What is this?

If you are looking for `kanji` and not `hiragana`, then the correct symbol
would be this:

これは何ですか。

*: wa being used as the subject particle.

**: です（desu) does not always mean "is"

***: ka is a question marker, making the sentence a question.

