jack112  +  360211 Fri, 04 May 07 02:20 PM When someone asks you a question, for example, 'How do you do this?', Do I reply back in second person or first person?? Since the question is asking about 'you', should 't it be in first person? Question: How do you do this? Answers: 1. You must be very steady with your hands. 2. I must be very steady with my hands. For the answerers above, does it matter which one I use?? How come you can use second person when the question is asking about you?? jack112 Joined on Thu, Jul 22 2004 Regular Member 715

	khoff  +  360242 Fri, 04 May 07 03:39 PM Sometimes "you" means "you," and sometimes it just means "one, someone, anybody."  If the person is really asking about how you do something -- for instance, if you just showed them something complicated that you made yourself  -- then you would answer with "I."  ("How do you get the ship inside the bottle?"  "Well, I assemble the entire ship outside the bottle, with special hinges so that I can fold it flat...")  If the person is asking a general question, you would answer with "you," meaning "one, someone."  ("How do you find something on the internet?"  "Well, you can use a search engine, like Google.") Does that help? khoff Joined on Sun, Mar 6 2005 Senior Member 3,272 Native speaker of American English (but not a grammar expert)