What does "何か他" mean?

Question

I've seen 他に何か in dictionaries but I just found this sentence.

何か他に食べててくれたら良いけど

Does this mean "It'd be fine if you eat something else"?

Can the sentence retain the same meaning if you just used 他に without 何か？

Answer 1

Adding か to an interrogative pronoun, turns it into the Japanese equivalent of a "some~" pronoun:

誰【だれ】 who → 誰【だれ】か someone

どこ where → どこか somewhere

何【なに】 what → 何【なに】か something

So, if you remove the 何か from your sentence, it does not retain the same meaning because it would miss the "something" part.

Let's compare:

どこへ行きますか。Where do [you] go?

どこかへ行きますか。Do [you] go somewhere?

質問【しつもん】がありますか。 Do [you] have questions [at all]?

何【なに】か質問【しつもん】がありますか。Do [you] have any (literally "some") question?

Answer 2

Not a native speaker here but lived in Japan for a couple of years.

First off, changing the order, 他に何か vs 何か他に, does not change the meaning.

Leaving out the 何か removes a layer of ambiguity and indirectness that Japanese are known for. The sentence almost feels curt without it.

With it, the sentence feels warmer, even apologetic. The nuance is quite subtle though (and possibly imaginary on my part!)

他に... : Something else...

何か他に... : Anything else but this...

That's how I would interpret the tiny difference, anyway. Honestly, I might be seeing it only because I'm looking for a difference.

If the answer is way off, I hope someone could show the light.

誰か他に...