How to ask the question " 布什是第几任总统 ”in English?

[Wu Yan]

Hello everyone,

I can't remember cleary. If my memory is not wrong, I remember someone said " some questions asked by Chinese can not be translated into Chinese." For example,

请问布什是第几任总统？

how to ask this question in English? But not " how many presidents befor Bush?".

If my English in not well, please give correction. （如果我的英语有错误或者不符合习惯，请指正，谢谢！）

[conorstuart88]

I think a better way to ask the question would be "How many Presidents have there been before George Bush?" This way you can get the same answer but the question sounds a bit more natural.

[Wu Yan]

Thank you.

In fact I have this question because I read a article from a Chinese journal.

(邓大任 人家没有这种思想 《万象》06年8月)

The following words (quoted from someone's blog) are what I really want to express:

"老先生好玩的地方还有，在发问美国佬“您是第几位州长呀”时，这个“第”怎么来表达，别的句式当然也可以替代这个意思，可是怎么最准确地就对这个“the 80th”发问呢?"

[yersi]

"Which president is George Bush?" is the question you're looking for!

[imron]

Which president is George Bush?" is the question you're looking for!

Yes and no. That question could also have a lot of other answers.

[yersi]

That's true, but I'm guessing that the question will be clarified through context:

1) Everybody knows George Bush is President of America so the question will not be misunderstood as "which country is George Bush president of?"

2) Assuming there aren't any choices to pick from (best president, worst president), the listener should be able to infer that the questioner is asking where George Bush is in the line of American presidents.

So while it's a question that linguistically could have several different meanings, I think it's reasonable to say that a native speaker will understand it as the "布希是第几任总统?" that the OP wanted to express.

[maash]

you may ask like

before bush, howmany president's were there?

[daofeishi]

What about "what number is Bush in the presidential line"?

[dsrguru]

I would say "What number president is Bush?" as Zach Hide said.