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What's the difference between "Что ты улыбаешься?" и "Почему ты улыбаешься?" or in some other similar cases?

brilliant
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    The two words have a similar meaning only when used with intransitive verbs. As far as I understand it, the former has more obvious connotations of perplexity, bewilderment and irritation, that's a rhetoric question; the latter sounds like a real desire to know the reason for doing the action in question. Please, feel free to re-post this comment as an answer to this question, if you think it's relevant, providing some examples of both types of questions. – Yellow Sky Jun 20 '13 at 23:13

1 Answers1

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"Почему" simply means "why/what the reason"; "что" also has a variety of context-dependent informal meanings, including a mix of "why/what for". "Что" may also introduce a rhetorical tone to the question.

In your example, "Почему ты улыбаешься?" is always a neutral or friendly question, meaning "What made you smile?" The person who is asking is interested in an answer.

"Что ты улыбаешься?" may mean exactly the same when told in a positive manner, but it can also work as a rude opening, meaning "You'd better not be smiling". The person who is talking like that implies that there's nothing to smile about and/or that the smiling won't make any good. In that case, there's even a more aggressive version of this question: "Что ты лыбишься?" ("What the f*k are you smiling at/for?"). In many cases you can't really tell is "что" "why" or "what for", it is context dependent.

"Что" in this type of questions will never be used in formal speech.

Yellow Sky
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Ilya Semenov
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  • Very good answer, straight to the point. I didn't know Что could be used with that meaning. :) Good to know! – Alenanno Jun 21 '13 at 10:36
  • Great answer! Could you shed some meaning on the word "лыбишься" please? Google translate isn't very useful, and from what I can vaguely see it's very much a proverbial term. Thanks! – Matt Fletcher Jul 04 '13 at 12:52
  • очень точно!... – garik Jul 04 '13 at 13:13
  • @MattFletcher, "лыбишься" (inf. лыбиться) is a verb meaning to grin, to smile not because something is funny or adorable, but because one's hiding his/her other emotions like sarcasm or gloat (or even stupidity) behind the smile. – Ilya Semenov Oct 02 '13 at 10:38
  • @IlyaSemenov Ah, thanks! I think the equivalent in English would be "grimace", would it not? – Matt Fletcher Oct 02 '13 at 15:16
  • @MattFletcher, I think "to grin" is a more suitable verb rather than "to grimace". To grin, as "лыбиться", always implies a smile of some sort. To grimace is a broader term which may refer to making different facial expressions, not necessarily a smile. A grimace can be comical, but both a grin and "лыба" (very rarely used noun derived from "лыбиться") can not. Overall, that word doesn't really deserve learning IMO. You won't ever hear it unless you participate in a street brawl or something (but then you will also hear a dozen of other unknown words:-) – Ilya Semenov Nov 26 '13 at 16:45