[Tlhingan-hol] 'ar again

[De'vID]

De'vID:
>> "How many languages do you speak?" - {Hol 'ar Dajatlh?}

Voragh:
> qay'be'.  loS Hol vIjatlh. (I speak 4 languages).

De'vID:
>> "How much of the language do you speak?" {Hol[vam] 'ar Dajatlh?}

Voragh:
> ?? wejmaH vagh vatlhvI' Holvam vIjatlh. (I speak 35% of this language. [??])
>
> I don't know what answer you're expecting.  (A little?  A lot?)  You want to know how well I speak the language - e.g. Do'Ha' romuluSngan Hol vIjatlhchu'be' 'ej qarDaSngan Hol vIjatlhlaHbe'qu' (Unfortunately, I don't speak Romulan well and Cardassian not at all).  In this case you should probably ask something like:

The background to my question is that I asked a beginner {Hol 'ar
DajatlhlaH?}, and he answered something along the lines of "How do you
say 'I'm just beginning to learn'?", which initially confused me,
until I realised he understood {'ar} to mean "how much [of the
language]" rather than "how many languages". I wanted to find out if
others understood {Hol 'ar} as I did or as he did.

Voragh:
>   Holvam Dajatlhchu''a'?
>   Do you speak this language well?

That's how I would ask someone if they were conversant. Although,
{jatlhchu'} may imply "fluent", which I don't think any conversant
speaker would actually claim.

Voragh:
>   chay' Holvam Dajatlh?
>   How do you speak this language.
>
> ... though don't be surprised if you get the answer:  I speak with my mouth, I use my fingers, etc.

Yes, I would avoid {chay'} for this. Klingon {chay'} is not like English "how":
{chay' jura'?} - "What are your orders?", literally, "How do you command us?"
{chay' Dochvam vIlo'?} - "What do I do with this?", literally, "How do
I use this?"

For {chay' Holvam Dajatlh?}, I would expect the answer to be {nujwIj vIlo'}.

De'vID:
>> For the latter sentence, I can add {-vam} to make it clear I'm talking
>> about one language in particular. But if I ask, {Hol 'ar Dajatlh?},
>> would you understand it to be a question about how many languages one
>> speaks, or how much of one language one speaks? This is not a
>> theoretical question: I recently asked this of a Klingon beginner, and
>> he didn't understand the question the way I intended.

Voragh:
> Unhesitatingly:  How many languages.

maj. So {'ar} is not as ambiguous as my exchange has led me to believe.

De'vID:
>> "How many ships were damaged?" - {rIQ Duj 'ar?}
>> "How much of the ship was damaged?" - {rIQ Duj[maj] 'ar?}

Voragh:
> If I were {ya}, how many ships -- assuming that there were more than one present).  For the latter, I would have said:  Duj QIH yIngu' (yIper)! (Identify [specify] the ship's damage).

maj. I think in the heat of battle I'd go with something like {QIH
Dotlh!} "damage report!" (verb is implied) or {Duj QIH [yI]ja'!}
"report ship damage!"

Voragh:
> {'ar} "how many" expects a number as an answer:
> {'ar} "how much" probably expects a number as well:

That's a very helpful way of looking at it. {Hol 'ar DajatlhlaH?} "How
many/much language(s) do you speak -- and I expect a number for an
answer?" It seems fairly obvious the question is intended to ask the
number of languages rather than the number (numeric percentage?) of
one language

--
De'vID