What,...

Question

Ejemplos:

What, are you full?
What, is he talking to me?
What, do you think I'm stupid?
What, you want me to do it all myself?

En cada una de las oraciones de arriba, la palabra what se puede omitir sin cambiar el significado fundamental de ninguna manera. Sin embargo, la palabra añade algo importante, y hace que la oración suene mucho más natural en un contexto hablado. Esta palabra no se pronuncia con una entonación asecendente (como si fuera una interrogativa), sino descendente. Este uso es sumamente común, pero no se me occure nada equivalente en español, a no ser que se diga "qué" de la misma manera.

¿Sugerencias'

Answer 1

Maybe one of the reasons why there isn't a way to say it as clearly or in the same way in Spanish as you are able to in English is, from what I have observed, sarcasm isn't viewed as highly outside of the United States. I was always told that sarcasm was mean and rarely viewed as funny.

I can't think of adding the same nuance in Spanish without including an iterrogative, which as you said is not the true meaning or purpose of saying 'What...'

Answer 2

As an American,
the problem is that we have adopted a wide spread usage of rhetorical questions merged with sarcasm. This means that it is strictly a conversational and cultural thing, and is not highly applicable any where else. I am not an expert on other languages, but it could partially be because of how flexible grammatical laws are in English, specifically in America. When one is showing any form of friendship for example, these rules do not generally apply, and thus many new phrases and laws keep getting formed because we relax these laws.

Also, there are generally two views on sarcasm in America.

There is the converstaional sarcasm that is not complete without the proper tone of voice. This means that in order to get away with sarcasm, then one must have a friendly tone, and it can not be about something serious.

There is also the more serious sarcasm. There are simply some things that you do not joke about. An example of this would be something that someone finds deeply personal, such as a pet dying or something along those lines. The sentence, "What, did you like him'" isn't appropriate.

From what I have been able to decipher, most English is mainly about meaning. American English however, is all about tone and general idea, not exact meaning of words.