"nan" in "kore wa nan desu ka"

Question

How do you translate the "nan" in "kore wa nan desu ka" from rōmaji to kanji?

Is "これわなんですか" correct?

Answer 1

First of all, the writing system you are refering to is hiragana. Not kanji. And no, it would not be これわなんですか。

The correct way to write it would be this:

これはなんですか。

The only real difference here is that the は character, pronounced "ha" normally, is being used as a subject particle in this sentence. So is therefore pronounced "wa" and written as "wa" in Romaji.

Another example is the word こんにちは (konnichiwa) which uses the "ha" character as a "wa", but in this case is not a subject marker.

Seperated into seperate words, your sentence is this:

Hiragana: これ　は　なん　です　か

Romaji:....kore....wa...nan....desu....ka

English:....This...*.......what....is**....***

So your sentence literally means: What is this?

If you are looking for kanji and not hiragana, then the correct symbol would be this:

これは何ですか。

*: wa being used as the subject particle.

**: です（desu) does not always mean "is"

***: ka is a question marker, making the sentence a question.

Answer 2

何 can be read nan or nani and it means "what".

"kore wa" means "this" and "desuka" indicates a question.

So "kore wa nan desu ka" basically means "What is this?"

Answer 3

In hiragana, これはなんですか。なん is 何 in kanji.
"何" You can read nani, nan. that means what.
"korewa 〜 desuka" means Is this. (If Japanese sentence has desuka, it is Question)

Anyway, "kore wa nandeska" means What's this?