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How do you do this?

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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??



  
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Eva_school  #360218  Fri, 04 May 07 02:34 PM
You can use both, as they have a slight difference in the meaning.
  
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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?

  
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