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**Question:** Is どうやって considered to be a single word all to its own (acting
as an interrogative adverb?)? Or is it just どう＋やる ("doing + how"), and no
different than any other te-form construction?

In the following, it _seems_ to be acting as a single word:

> 駅まで **どうやって** 行きますか。
>
> How can I get to the station?

...since if どうやって were just a て-form construction, then 駅まで would have to be
contiguously paired with 行きますか, I think? As in:

> ( **どうやって** )(駅まで行きますか)。

as opposed to the way it is now:

> (駅まで)( **どうやって** )(行きますか)。

So the fact that どうやって breaks into 駅まで行きますか makes me think that it is
genuinely a single word, and not just どう + the て-form of やる.

Is this correct?
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2023-01-26T20:22:47.083
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2023-01-27T06:41:39.830
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て-form
Is どうやってa single word, or just どう＋やる (in the て-form)?
This is literally どう ("how") + やって ("doing", from やる).

Note that Japanese uses どう ("how") in various places where we use "what" in
English. For instance, 「どうした？」 is literally "how did [something] do?", as in
"how did this current state or situation come about?" Meanwhile, in idiomatic
English, we would say "what happened?" instead.

In some cases, どうやって ("doing how") is better rendered as "doing what". In
other cases, just "how".

> 駅までどうやって行きますか。

One way to break this down from an English perspective might be:

> 駅までどうやって行きますか。  
>  ↓ _(literal)_  
>  station until how doing go `[QUESTION]`  
>  ↓ _(slightly more idiomatic)_  
>  How do I do to go to the station?  
>  ↓ _(more idiomatic still, noting that Japanese uses "how" in many places
> where English uses "what")_  
>  What do I do to go to the station?  
>  ↓ _(most natural English)_  
>  How do I go to the station?
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2023-01-26T21:07:36.637
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