<p>Should it be “Which president of US is Barack Obama?” or is there a more specific way of asking what is his place(number) among the order of all presidents?</p>
<p>FYI, English is my second language.</p>
<p>How about, “who is the 44th president of the united states?”</p>
<p>I agree with flowersofglass…</p>
<p>flowersofglass,</p>
<p>okay, well that works, but what I really want to know is how would a native English speaker ask that question without having to state an ordinal ranking?</p>
<p>How do you frame a question that ask about a rank or sequence?</p>
<p>What if I don’t have a clue about the sequence at all??</p>
<p>Another example, </p>
<p>Let say, what if George is the 4th child in the family, and I don’t know that information. Do I say "George are you the first, second , third, fourth etc in the family???</p>
<p>Most direct is “Which President is Obama?” Might need clarification, but probably not. Could say “Which number President is Obama?” although it looks awkward in writing. </p>
<p>Workaround: “Is Obama the Xth President?” Replace X with your first guess. If it is wrong, the person will correct you. If it is right, the person will say so. If they aren’t sure, they’ll probably say something like, “I think so.”</p>
<p>Example conversations:</p>
<p>“Hey, do you know which president Obama is?”
“Um… he’s the current one.”
“I know, but I mean, what number president is Obama?”
“The 44th, but I’m not sure.”</p>
<p>Or</p>
<p>“Is Obama the 42nd President?”
“I don’t think so. Maybe the 44th?”</p>
<p>Jimbo,</p>
<p>is their grammatically correct way to ask that question? or something that a native speaker would say?</p>
<p>something that sounds a bit for FORMAL?</p>
<p>A native speaker would most likely say, “What number president is Obama?” This isn’t technically grammatically incorrect, but is probably not something that you would see in professional writing.</p>
<p>***Also, I don’t normally do this, but since you’re working on English: you should have said “is there a grammatically correct way.”</p>
<p>JimboSteve, thanks for taking the time to explain that to me. I’m curios how I would write it if I write a paper with that question, but yeah, “what number president” sounds right. </p>
<p>-- and another thanks for correcting for grammar error. I don’t normally check for grammar or spelling or typo error in my posts either. That last one, I think I should have typed “that sounds a bit more formal” instead of " a bit for formal" … I probably messed up this post too, feel free to keep correcting me :)</p>