"Мама там, а тато?"
Translation:Mom is there, and dad?
17 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
Please Upvote So Others Can See
Which form of and do I use?
In Ukrainian, there are four words that mean and; і, та, а and й. Three of them; і, та and й are all used to link similar things, the only reason we have so many is so we can switch them around to make the language flow and sound more melodic.
- Мама і тато - Mom and dad
- Та я! - And me!
- Мова й алфавіт - Language and alphabet
It's really up to you when you want to use them :)
But on the other hand, а is used to contrast between two different things. It roughly corresponds to the English whereas.
- Мама там, а тато тут - Mom is there, and/whereas dad is here
- Я працюю а ти танюєш - I work and/whereas you work
- Мене звати Віктор а вас звати Вєра - My name is Victor and/whereas your name is Viera
I think this should at least be allowed too. "Mum is there and dad?" makes no sense to me in English.
I believe "and where is dad?" or "and what about dad?" should be accepted. You can get an error for using awkward English, so you shouldn't be pubishes for trying to use a little less awkward English.
2627
"and what about dad?" was in the word cloud. I assumed they wouldn't have put it there if you weren't supposed to use it, and indeed it was accepted, even though "and dad?" is given as the primary translation.
"A" is a Ukrainian conjunction that has no direct equivalent in English. It's used when two things that have something in common also exist in opposition at some level. Try thinking about it as a combination of "and" and "but."
In this case, we want to know where both people are (the "and" element), but we only know where one of them is (the "but" element). Але, the Ukrainian word for "but" would be too strong.
I wrote "Mom is there, but is dad?" and I think this should be an accepted answer.
The platform is not accepting this even though the platform shows the same answer