By the way guys, I was just reading a Lang-8 entry by one of my friends. In the Japanese version of his entry, he wrote:
'何をやってるんだ！？'
In English, he simply translated this to, "What is he doing?!"

Apparently it is used when angry or distressed. I'm so glad I read that entry ^_^

Sorry for bringing back a dead post.

Socky Wrote:According to "Tae Kim's Grammar Guide," a question cannot end in the declarative だ, which would seem to make sense. However I faintly remember hearing sentences such as '何をするんだ？' while watching anime. Of course 'da ka' is incorrect, but can you not create a question ending in だ with simply a questioning tone?

Thank you.

FYI:

From Wikipedia concerning the dialect used in Shizuoka Prefecture(遠州弁）:
〜だ？
〜の？。話者により、上昇調・下降調のいずれも用いられる。「書いただ？」と言うと、「書いたら？（書いたでしょ？）」と聞き間違えてしまう場合もある。
「昨日、朝ご飯食べただ？」（＝「昨日、朝ご飯食べたの？」）
「朝ご飯食べんくて何が悪いだ？」（＝「朝ご飯食べなくて何が悪いの？」）

Also, 〜だか is used for questions when a person is talking to his/herself. For example,
昨日、彼は来ただか？

As always, it's depends on the person and whether the environment they grew up in used such language or not.

kaizer Wrote:I disagree. I've certainly never heard anybody say "What the eff are you doing?" with a sweet voice.

That just means you haven't spent time in Australia yet.

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