# Anyone inside?



## Pacerier

Hi all, if someone is in the toilet and I want to ask "who's inside / anyone inside" what phrases would be appropriate?

Is this rude: なかにだれ？


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## Arui Kashiwagi

Pacerier said:


> Is this rude: なかにだれ？


This doesn't make sense. In this case, you should always add a verb (e.g. "なかに だれ*か* *いる*？"). Otherwise the sentence will be unnatural.

But speaking about the situation of toilets, the most common way is to say "入ってますか?".
When you're asked by someone, you can reply "入ってます".

(By the way I can't explain why "中に誰？" is unidiomatic whereas "中に虫！"[A bug is inside!] is acceptable. Do anyone have an idea?)


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## Wishfull

Hi.
If the context is about my home's morning scene, I would say;
「だれー！」
or
「中、だれー！」
or
「まだー？だれー？」


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## Pacerier

Lolz what would be an appropriate reply for that..


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## banzai443

*W*ell this is what the *J*apanese military asked once the 津波 hit: 「誰がありますか？」
*B*ut this is also exceptable 「誰にのか？」then there's 「中か？」I'm not sure about the 3rd one but to answer any of these questions would be 「はい！」と「あります！」と「ある！」

@arui *T*he reason why you don't get the difference is because 'dare' is an adjective and not a noun and 'mushi' and one is a question and the other is not, therefore 「中に誰？」is gramatically incorrect*.*


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## mikun

Hi,
We usually knock the door to check if someone has occupied the room or not.
Usually we don't show any direct identification signs in that private environment.
I don't hear any such 中にだれかいますか？　question nor　入っているよ　answer.


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## Flaminius

banzai443 said:


> 「誰がありますか？」
> 「誰にのか？」
> 「中か？」


All the sentences are ungrammatical or unnatural.  The first one can be salvaged by changed the verb from ある to いる, but the meaning is still different:
誰がいますか。 [Who is there?]



> *T*he reason why you don't get the difference is because 'dare' is an adjective and not a noun. . .


_Dare_ is an interrogative pronoun, so it's more a noun than an adjective.  If it were an adjective, it could modify another noun without _-no_ but *_dare kuruma_ for "whose car" is wrong.


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## Arui Kashiwagi

mikun said:


> Hi,
> We usually knock the door to check if someone has occupied the room or not.
> Usually we don't show any direct identification signs in that private environment.
> I don't hear any such 中にだれかいますか？　question nor　入っているよ　answer.


True, in most cases I knock the door without a word.

However we often use verbal communication especially when this kind of event happens among family, and I keep the opinion that the dialogue "入ってますか？" => "入ってます" ("入ってる？" => "入ってるよ") is appropriate and common.


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## sekaijuuni

Pacerier said:


> Hi all, if someone is in the toilet and I want to ask "who's inside / anyone inside" what phrases would be appropriate?
> 
> Is this rude: なかにだれ？



だれsimply means "who" while だれか is closer in meaning to "anyone/someone." I assume you're more interested in whether someone's in the toilet rather than the identity of the person in there  In terms of meaning, だれか would be closer to what you want, although it is not natural Japanese.

I like Arui's phrasing here.


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## banzai443

@Flaminius I'm just repeating what I heard from some japanese talk shows and news reports, also the way I learned how to use 誰 was as an adjective, to replace certain nouns and such (although I'm not sure if this is just an error on my part in learning the language) but thank you for helping me understand more


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## Pacerier

Btw just a quick question.. why did they use あります when the noun here is a human?


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## Flaminius

> I'm just repeating what I heard from some *J*apanese talk shows and news reports


TV figures make mistakes in their Japanese but these are not the kind of mistakes that a native Japanese speaker would make.  I suspect you heard some parts wrong or quoted out of context.



> 誰 was as an adjective, to replace certain nouns and such


It's not an adjective's job "to replace certain nouns and such" but a pronoun's.  _Dare_ is used like _who_, which is a pronoun.


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