[Grammar] Is this perhaps one of your first times driving a car?

[kadioguy]

Is this perhaps one of your first times driving a car?

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/zht/語法/英式語法/discourse-markers-so-right-okay
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1. Does the blue part mean this:

We have got many first times in our lives, and this is one of them - you are driving a car for the first time.

2.
a. Is this perhaps one of your first times driving a car?

b. Is this perhaps one of your first times (when/in) driving a car?

c. Is this perhaps one of your first times (when you are) driving a car?

Do the three mean the same?

 

[emsr2d2]

I didn't have time to check the link for the quote but if that is an example sentence on that site, I think it should be removed! There can't be more than one instance of your first time driving a car. The first time you drive a car is it. After that, it's your second/third/fourth etc time. It sounds like you're trying to ask something like "Are you an inexperienced driver?"

 

[kadioguy]

I didn't have time to check the link for the quote but if that is an example sentence on that site, I think it should be removed! There can't be more than one instance of your first time driving a car. The first time you drive a car is it. After that, it's your second/third/fourth etc time. It sounds like you're trying to ask something like "Are you an inexperienced driver?"

Thank you, emsr2d2.

I found that the structure of "one of your first times doing something" isn't that unusual on the web. For example,

https://www.google.com/search?q=%22one+of+your+first+times%22&rlz=1C1CHBD_zh-TWTW940TW948&oq=%22one+of+your+first+times%22&aqs=chrome..69i57.1299j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

 

[emsr2d2]

You can find just about anything on the internet.

 

[Rover_KE]

It doesn't matter how many examples you found—they're all illogical, and off-topic anyway.

It took me a while to find the original sentence in your link. It's an example of 'perhaps' used as a discourse marker, about which I haven't enough knowledge to comment.

 

[kadioguy]

It took me a while to find the original sentence in your link.

You can try this:

Copy the text you want, and in the target page press Ctrl+f, then the search bar will appear. Paste the text in the bar and then you can easily find the text in the page.

 

[jutfrank]

I don't have much of a problem with one of your first times.

Analytically, it means there are several 'first' times and this is one of them. You can understand it to mean 'one of the first few times'.

Out of context, it's hard to say what the speaker means, but I can imagine that he just wants to comment on how unexperienced the driver appears. The apparent oddness of mentioning several first times may be intended to be a less direct, and therefore less rude way of asking Is this your (very) first time? We can't really say without more context.

Your second question is doing what I've suggested before you do not do. You've attempted to paraphrase the target sentence with different grammar and then ask us whether we understand the paraphrases in the same way that you understand them. This isn't a good question, in my opinion. As for the meaning, without context all we know is that the speaker is referring to a specific occasion of the listener driving a car. We can't tell if the act of driving is in the past, in progress, or in the future. If you want to paraphrase, you could say: Is this one of the first few times that you have driven, are driving, or intend to drive a car?