I'm a English learner who studies syntax. I often refer to English corpus such as COCA to learn natural uses of English. Then, I found some sentences involving "how come", followed by "that" and a sentence, for example, as following:
How come that you have such good English? / How come that you eat hot food in hot countries?
I have thought that those correct sentences of how come should be like "How come you have such good English", where "that" is omitted.
I want to know how native speakers feel about those sentences that involve "that" between "how come" and a sentence. Are they correct? Is there any difference? Or, are they a sort of error-like ones?
Thank you.
Best Answer
"How come that..." is not good English. To my (American) ear, this use of "How come" sounds like a literal translation of the Spanish phrase "Por qué". This use of "How come" is natural for many American English speakers who are also native speakers of Spanish. It is not natural for most other American English speakers.
Your two examples would sound more natural (to me) as: