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Consider

先生もお使いになってみたらいかがですか。

Sensei, how about you try using this?

Questions:

  1. The も at the end of 先生も indicates "Teacher, how about you also try using this", correct? (Meaning that before this sentence was uttered, it's likely that it was discussed how other people, besides the teacher, had tried using the thing in question). Is this case?

  2. いかが is translated as "questionable" in its な-adjective form. Under this viewpoint, this sentence means something like

"Teacher, if you also try and use this, it would be questionable, no?"

What's going on here? Is asking if something is "questionable" just a more indirect/polite way of asking whether it's good in Japanese?

George
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    Why reach for "questionable" when the other meaning and part of speech in the link makes far more sense? – Leebo Jan 31 '23 at 00:53
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    Indeed. This is simply いかが as a question word. If you replace いかが with どう, does the sentence then make sense to you? – jogloran Jan 31 '23 at 01:15
  • Thanks for clarifying :) I think because the "how" meaning of this word was marked as an Adverb in that bilingual dictionary, I didn't consider it as a possibility in this sentence. Also: it still wasn't immediately clear how "how" makes this sentence meaningful, though after thinking about it some it now makes more sense. – George Jan 31 '23 at 22:53
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    "How about" is in the translation you included. That's the "how about" in the definitions of いかが and どう. – Leebo Feb 01 '23 at 00:40

1 Answers1

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いかが has two main meanings.

  1. polite saying of どう
  2. seeming to be morally wrong(maybe this is the questionable)

As you wrote, the sentence means "Teacher, how about you also try using this". 1 is used here.
It has the same meaning as 先生もお使いになってみたらどうですか.

But you can't always use いかが instead of どう.
I think どうしますか？ can't be いかがしますか？.
いかがなさいますか？ is much more natural.
And どうなさいますか？ is good too.
どう is used almost anytime.
いかが is tend to be in quite a polite sentence as a whole.

2 isn't used so often.
When used, it will be almost only in these forms.
いかがなものかと思う, いかがかと思う, いかがなものだろう
This isn't casual at all. In conversation, almost all the young people would use どうかと思う instead.

Chance
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  • See https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/70250/what-does-%E3%81%A9%E3%81%86%E3%81%8B%E3%81%A8%E6%80%9D%E3%81%86-mean for a previous question about どうかと思う. – jogloran Feb 01 '23 at 00:18