Saying “some” as in “What are some examples of this?”


How would you express “some” when you’re asking for a list of things or
examples of something?

My gut is to just say whatever I’m talking about, like:

> 好きな鳥は何ですか？

meaning “What are some birds you like?” but that seems more like it says “What
does 好きな鳥 mean?” so I’m not sure.




The English word 'some' is pretty versatile and can be attached to many other
words. In Japanese, what tends to happen is that 'some' gets translated
differently according to what kind of things you are talking about. Here are
some examples (pun intended):

  * 誰か somebody 
  * 何か something 
  * どこか somewhere 
  * いつか some day / some time 
  * いくつか some items 
  * いくらか some amount 

Moving specifically to your question, you suggested that

> 好きな鳥は何ですか。

might be translated with 'some'. However, the literal meaning is "What are the
birds you like?" I suppose you could argue that using 'some' in a translation
is justified, but there is probably a better way. One simple way would be to
ask:

> どんな鳥が好きですか。(lit. "What kind of birds do you like?")

Since when you use 'some', you are asking the person to list a few items which
match the criteria of 'birds you like', you could also use `いくつか` ("some
things") [[Definition
here](https://kotobank.jp/word/%E5%B9%BE%E3%81%A4%E3%81%8B-202205)]. You could
ask someone to list some bird types they like by saying something like:

> いくつか好きな鳥を言ってください。(lit. "Please say some bird (varieties) you like").

As with most things in language, there is usually a variety of ways to express
any given phrase or sentence. But it's probably useful to learn about いくつか
anyway, so here are some more examples of いくつか, from Weblio ([Click
here](https://ejje.weblio.jp/content/%E3%81%84%E3%81%8F%E3%81%A4%E3%81%8B%E3%81%AE)).

