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I have the following sentence:

熊の神とはどのようなものか、想像してみたが...

My book translates this as

I tried to imagine what the Bear God might be like.

I have multiple problems:

1) I think どのような means "what kind of" so would I be correct in saying that a more literal (not better) translation would be " I tried to imagine what kind of thing the bear god is"?

2) What is the purpose of the と after 熊の神?

3) Why is there no と before 想像する? Would it be okay to add one?

Chocolate
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user3856370
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1 Answers1

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1) Yes.

2) It defines the thing being talked about. In this case it is 熊の神. See some previous answers: Purpose of ～とは in 「あなたにとって仕事とはなんでしょうか」

3) I think it would be okay to have a と. I'm not very certain about this one though.

Community
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Ringil
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    I don't think you can add a と after か here - with embedded questions, you just use か. You would add と to quote a question (with e.g. ～かと思った). – Sjiveru Aug 09 '15 at 22:42