What was my English teacher?

[anahita]

My English teacher asked me a question and I answered him , " I am the third bairn in my family."
Can you tell me what my English English question was?

[rewboss]

"Bairn" is Scots English or north-east English dialect for "child".

[queenbu]

Originally Posted by anahita

My English teacher asked me a question and I answered him , " I am the third bairn in my family."
Can you tell me what my English English question was?

The question could have been 'Are you the oldest child in your family?'

[anahita]

Dear Mr. Queenbu, I understand your mean but I want to know Which word we can use instead of " Are you the oldest....... . " .
Suppose there are some cars in a line beside each other in a parking , now I want to ask you (......... ? ) car is yours? first car ? second car ? third car ?
or.......... . ( Please don't say to me,(which car ) no, no , I know this word,
I am looking up another word ) I need a sentence that has been started with -Wh- or - Ho- ( for example : Which or how ...... ? my mean is the number of car.I don't know ,perhaps I must say ," which number is your car" and he will say for example , " The third car.")
Do you know my mean?
With thanks.
Your answer is very important fo me. I'm in a hurry.I'm completely mixed up.

[queenbu]

Are you looking for the word 'position'?

[queenbu]

What is your position in the family?

[navi tasan]

Hi everyone,

I am not a native speaker, but I think I understand what Anahita is looking for. The word she is looking for exists in some languages, but not in English.

A-Counting from the left which car is your car?
The third car.

B-Counting up from the oldest child which child are you in your family?
The fifth child.

Nobody would say sentence B in English though. They would just ask:
'How many older brothers and sisters do you have?'

[Tdol]

I agree with Navi Tasan that it's difficult to find a natural question for this in English. If the number of siblings has been established, you could ask something like 'Where do you come?', but it would require context and wouldn't work in isolation. You could try 'Are they older or younger?'

[queenbu]

So you don't like the 'position' question? I've read many psychological reviews about sibling position.

[navi tasan]

Hi Queenbu,

I didn't say I didn't like it. The thing is that you can't use that expression when you are talking about cars or other things (how many cars did you have before this one?). I thought Anahita was looking for a word that simply doesn't exist in English.
As for 'What is your sibling position', I have to admit that I didn't know that expression and I learnt it from you. Thanks. I did a google word search and found that it did exist. I don't know if it is an expression an average native speaker would understand. It might be a 'technical expression'. I wonder what TDOL and others think about this.