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I want to know the meaning of "山田さんはどんな風にしていましたか。" and understand the
grammatical construction. Does it means "How Yamada looked like ?" or "In what
way Yamada did it?" ?

For this example, the reply of that question about Yamada in my textbook is
"元気そうにしていました。"
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2021-04-07T15:04:06.290
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2021-05-12T11:25:08.260
2021-04-07T15:46:26.213
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question
grammar expressions
どんな風にする expression
In the case of example, it means "How Yamada looked like ?". (Without context,
"山田さんはどんな風にしていましたか。" can mean both of them.)
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2021-04-10T17:10:36.640
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To be honest the whole thing sound a bit weird, maybe I'm just lacking
experience, but here's what I think.

> どんな風に

This part I've mostly seen in things like "How?" or "In what way?". So, with
the help of the reply "元気そうにしていました", did help a lot, it seems to me that it
just means "How was Tanaka doing?", "He was doing well".

I made a mistake here ”山田さんは元気にしていましたか？” (don't use)
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2021-04-10T20:19:28.593
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2021-04-11T00:10:59.740
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First, understand the simplest form of the expression:

こんな風に

like this

When you are teaching Origami, you would say:

Fold it like this.

こんな風におります。

So, the expression by itself does not speak to health, appearance, folding, or
flavor. Quite simply, "like this". So it depends on what follows.

夏には、 _こんな風に_ 着飾ります。

In summer, you can dress it up _LIKE THIS_.

Now, let's make the statement above a question.

夏には、どんな風に着飾りますか？

How do you dress in Summer?

Notice how it became simply "How".

Now, let's get back to your original.

山田さんはどんな風にしていましたか。

This is a conjugation of する(do) in progressive tense.

So, in the end it's quite literally:

How was Yamada doing?

Since it does not specify what it is about, it could be anything.
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2021-05-11T05:58:53.367
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2021-05-12T11:25:08.260
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answer