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I tried to call a person many times but the line was engage and I could not make call. Now if I want to ask him the reason then is is correct way to say "Why your phone can't be reached" ?

Please also mention other expressions to say this thing.

ramanujan
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    For a question, the form is *Why can't your phone be reached?* Your version is correct for non-question contexts like The reason why your phone can't be reached is because you switched it off. – FumbleFingers Jul 23 '16 at 19:07
  • thanks. So I can ask "Why can't your phone be reached?" – ramanujan Jul 23 '16 at 19:10
  • Exactly. But this is a duplicate, so if you have any more things you want to know about this usage, make sure they're not covered by previous answers. And ideally ask there if you want clarification, so we'll have all the necessary information on one page for future visitors. – FumbleFingers Jul 23 '16 at 19:17
  • No. it is not duplicate. Because I have not asked this for grammatical structure. Actually I wanted to know that whether this sentence express properly what I want to say and is it appropriate in this situation. – ramanujan Jul 23 '16 at 19:23
  • (Oh, and the business about other expressions to say this thing is effectively Off Topic, since there are any number of paraphrasings, which might vary wildly in suitability according to the full and precise context.) – FumbleFingers Jul 23 '16 at 19:34
  • @FumbleFingers Yes, I now see that this is clearly a duplicate of one or more previous questions. Did not know it is OT to offer alternative expressions, though. – P. E. Dant Reinstate Monica Jul 23 '16 at 19:39
  • I wouldn't say it's inherently OT to ask for alternative ways of expressing something. But in your case you've already specified that you knew the number was engaged (i.e. - busy, presumably meaning it was being used to take other calls). There are an almost infinite number of ways of conveying that information and asking *why* the line was busy. None would be objectively the "best" answer, nor would the question be likely to be useful to any future visitors. But your general grammar is not too good, so you do need to learn basic points such as the noun/verb sequence in questions. – FumbleFingers Jul 23 '16 at 22:28
  • One possible way to ask that person would be something like: What happened? I called you many times today but your line was always busy. – Damkerng T. Jul 24 '16 at 04:05

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In American English, we would commonly say:

Why was your phone busy?

If we wanted to phrase the question as you have done, a grammatically correct form would be:

Why couldn't your phone be reached?

However, in either case, we would be be prepared for the probable answer:

Because I was talking to someone else.

P. E. Dant Reinstate Monica
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  • I don't think it's relevant to suggest complete rephrasings that might be used in OP's context. He's clearly asking about the issue of noun/verb sequence following WH- words (which simply depends on whether the utterance is formally a question or not). – FumbleFingers Jul 23 '16 at 19:21
  • @ FumbleFingers No I am not asking for grammar. I wanted to know whether it is appropriate in this context – ramanujan Jul 23 '16 at 19:27