How to make questions on these sentences??

Question

1.The cooking time is determined by the size of the chicken pieces.
I know I can ask this way "What determines the cooking time?" But the structure of this question is different from the original sentence. The question is in active voice while the original sentence is in passive voice. So is there a way to keep the question in passive voice?

2.This article was translated into English.
How should I ask? Maybe "What language was this article translated into?"? I'm not sure.

And what about the perfect version:
This article has been translated into English.
Maybe "What language has this article been translated into?"?

CalifJim · Accepted Answer

chris123is there a way to keep the question in passive voice?

Yes. By what factor is cooking time determined?

chris123How should I ask? Maybe "What language was this article translated into?" ...
"What language has this article been translated into?"

Yes. Those are correct.

CJ

Chris123 · Answer

CalifJimBy what factor is cooking time determined?

Seeing that the preposition "by" is at the beginning of the sentence, I want to ask, can I say "Into what language was this article translated?"?

CalifJim · Answer

chris123Seeing that the preposition "by" is at the beginning of the sentence, I want to ask, can I say "Into what language was this article translated?"?

Yes. That's a more universal principle regarding the placement of prepositions. In questions like that you can put the preposition at the beginning or at the end. At the end is much more common. At the beginning is more formal.

What factor is cooking time determined by? = By what factor is cooking time determined?
What language was it written in? = In what language was it written?
Who did you talk to? = To whom did you talk?

(Note: who becomes whom after a preposition. See the last example above.)

CJ

Chris123 · Answer

Thanks for your help. Here I find another question regarding making questions. Can I omit the noun after the word "what" if the meaning is clear?
For example, in this sentence "What factor is cooking time determined by?", can I say "What is cooking time determined by?" or "By what is cooking time determined?"? Because in this sentence, the thing after the word "by" is always a factor, I think it doesn't matter if I omit the word "factor".

And when it comes to the sentence about language, I guess I can't omit the word "language" because the thing after the word "in" may not only be a language but also other things for example "This article was written in pen.".

CalifJim · Answer

chris123What factor is cooking time determined by?

Sounds all right.

chris123What is cooking time determined by?

Sounds all right.

chris123By what is cooking time determined?

Does not sound right to me. I don't know why, but with the preposition first, "by what" alone doesn't seem very idiomatic, even though it's technically correct.

chris123And when it comes to the sentence about language, I guess I can't omit the word "language" because the thing after the word "in" may not only be a language but also other things for example "This article was written in pen.".

Correct.

CJ

GPY · Answer

Why not simply say How is cooking time determined?

CalifJim · Answer

GPYWhy not simply say How is cooking time determined?

Indeed. Why not? Even better.

CJ

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