uzferry wrote:[flag=]eng-us[/flag]Is it me, or does "How many people are here who can do <...>" sounds much less natural than "How many people are there who can do <...>?" Even though I'm implying an area which is around me - here? Can someone point out the difference between these two?
As already pointed out, "there are / are there" is the way to say "exists", like in French, Spanish, Portuguese, and probably various other Romance languages. (Not sure if other Germanic languages used structure. English may have gotten it from French.) And as also pointed out, you could just add "here" to imply the geographical area. You can also add "over there; over in that area" to specify a far away location. Ex:
How many people are there here who can do ...?How many people are there over there who can do ...?How many people are there over in that area who can do ...?PS. You don't have to surround the ellipsis with angle brackets. In fact, to me it looks kinda weird; almost like you're borrowing the punctuation from possibly French or another language. Like I did, you can just use the ellipsis to imply more.
uzferry wrote:[flag=]fr[/flag]C'est moi, ou est-elle la phrase « How many people are here who can do <...> » (Combien de gens sont ici qui peuvent faire....) sonne beaucoup moins naturel que (la phrase) « How many people are there who can do <...>? » (Combien de gens sont laà qoui peuvent faire...)? Meême si j'ai dans la tête un région qu'qui est autour de moi - voici? Quelqu'un peut dire lela différence d'entre eux?
Je dirais probablement « Même si je veux dire un région qui est près de moi » , mais je ne sais si « près de moi » est meilleur de la phrase « autour de moi » dans ce cas. Aussi, en français, « sont là » veut dire une chose différente de la phrase « il y a » . La meilleure traduction est comme « over there » : Combien de gens sont là - How many people are over there. Pour dire « How many people are there » , on dirait « Il y a combien de gens » .