"Where is this man?"
Translation:Где этот человек?
63 Comments
Is there a reason why "Где этот мужчина?" wasn't accepted? I reported that it should be accepted, but maybe I'm missing something.
In my opinion this should be the ONLY correct answer...человек translates to person and the question i where is the MAN. I think this answer should be the only acceptable answer.
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Yes, report these whenever you come across them. Beta is the time they'll be adding a lot of the possible answers. I've reported a few and the team responded very quickly. (Thank you busy team. :))
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The Russian "Где этот мужчина?" can only be translated as "Where is this man?" to English. But the English "man" can be translated as "человек" into Russian when it has a general meaning and can mean any human being. The Russian language is more inclusive in this case and doesn't define "a person" only as "a man".
You are correct in stating that 'man' can, in English, be none gender relative, as in the sentence 'When man first stepped on this island' but you would not use it about a person if you knew they were female, as would be the case in this sentence. I can see no situation where 'Где этот человек?' would translate to 'Where is this man?'. It would be 'Where is this person?'.
In a certain sense one might say that Russian has the opposite "political correctness" issue from English. I recall reading somewhere in this course about an effort with the slogan, "a woman can also be a человек".
Obviously, that says something about the state of actual usage, at least at a certain not-too-distant juncture.
In short, in English "man" means "person," and in Russian "person" means "man." (well, at least within the lifetimes of many doing this course; hopefully somebody with the knowledge will better specify the precise current "lay of the land" for Russian)
If there is no context it should be мужчина. Also, using the word man to indicate a person in general is sexist, not inclusive. Portuguese also uses man for person, but modern texts that I have seen are using the words 'human being' instead.
There are plenty of cases where English man can be translated as человек and men as люди, and not person or people. For instance, spies might say that they have their man among the enemies - that would be человек (never мужчина). Or gangsters might tell you that if you don't pay, they will send some men to help you find some cash - that would be люди, not мужчины.
Tim - not always, but very often, it's used either in the situation where gender doesn't play any role at all (similar to many languages in Russian masculine words are used in this case), and it might be used to talk about males only. It might be helpful for you to know that the word чоловiк means a husband in Ukrainian for instance. In English many people would call their husbands - my man. The Russian word for husband is муж, which is the word previously used for man (мужчина is the more recent word, before man=husband= person)
So this sentence here can be part of such conversion:
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I sent you one of my men to solve the problem. - Я послал к тебе одного из своих людей решить эту проблему.
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And where is the man? - Ну и где этот человек?
Your Russian appears to be better than a level 5!!! In all the cases above, maybe with the exception of the last one, the term 'man' or 'men' is not gender specific and could in actual fact be a female spy or a group of male and female gangsters, etc... We live in an age of assumptions. If someone tells you that the surgeon will visit you in five minutes you would expect a male but it could well be a female.
I am a native Russian speaker, and I've been living in the English speaking countries for 7 years.
I don't know, maybe when someone says - "I'll send you one of my men", they mean - it is a actually a female, but I've never heard that (doesn't prove much). I would argue then that Я пошлю тебе одного из моих людей might also imply a mixed group of people, and оного hear might be a female as well. Человек on the other hand, would imply that it is a male, so again, why cannot it be translated as man?
If you watch movies and read literature in both languages, you'll see such translations quite often. There are plenty of contexts where translating man as мужчина would be completely wrong.
In this particular case, both are accepted, and that is not a mistake.
I would argue that in this case because the word 'this' is used, the gender of the person is known, so in English there is no ambiguity.
If in Russian you were to say 'a person was seen at the crime scene' would you not say 'человек был замечен на месте преступления'? If so in this case 'человек' could be a female.
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If I understand this correctly, in Russian if you you use the word 'человек', even though it means 'human' or 'person' it would always be male.
No, definitely not. “Здесь ещё не ступала нога человека” or “человеческий род” include both genders. They are similar to your example “When man first stepped on this island”.
In this case Russian implies a male with 99.9% probability.
In your example of the crime человек might imply a female as well, but they would rather say совершивший преступление, преступник, подозреваемый.
If I understand this correctly, in Russian if you you use the word 'человек', even though it means 'human' or 'person' it would always be male.
Is человек always gender unknown (to the speaker)? Or if the gender of the человек is known to the speaker, does the form of "this" agree with the noun (i.e. этот) or the person (who could be fenale)?
I got a reply to my request saying that they now accept that answer (I actually got it the same day of my report, I just forgot to mention it here).
Compare these two:
это мужчина - This is a/the man.
этот мужчина - this man
Sorry what I should have written is "Где этот мужчина" but this was not one of the options and it should have been the answer for the question.
Yeah, why is etot used in the sentence? Like,why cannot someone say "Where is the [person/whatever object]?" without using 'etot'?
Этот is personal here and refers directly to "person" (целовек). Это Том means "This is Tom." and not "This Tom".
Just a slight correction: it should be 'этот' and 'это' instead of 'етот' and 'ето'.
"Where is this man?" is the question but of the three answers you can now choose from the only one that is close is "Где этот человек?", which I have just been taught means "Where is this person?". I have been previously taught that "мужчина" means man. What is going on? Either change the question to "Where is this person" or change the answer to "Где это мужчина".
Then why is the English translation given "Where is this man?"? I'll report this sentence next time I see it.
I've read the comments here but still unsure when to use это and этот for questions like this. Could I use это in this sentence?
Not in this sentence. You are correct to a certain extent, as 'это' can mean 'this is' or 'this' but it can only be 'this' with a neuter noun. So you would say 'это яблоко' for 'this apple', 'эта женщина' for 'this woman' and 'этот мужчина' for 'this man'. In this sentence you are referring to a man, who is obviously masculine, so you have to use 'этот'.
А находится этот мужчина? Does this not translate to "Where is this man located?" which arguably is a correct translation to "Where is the man?"
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You have somehow missed "где" ;)
"Где находится этот человек?" would essentially mean the same indeed except that a Russian would rather skip "находится" for the sake of speed and simplicity.
It all boils down to 'to be'.
In Russian the word "человек" means human and "мужчина" means man, so the third answer should be correct not the second. Am i right?
That's quite an allegation, you got evidence to back it up?
I'm here as a man who wants to learn - Я здесь как человек который хочет учиться
I think "Where is this person?" Must be the question for the answer that they consider correct
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About the person/man/человек/мужчина.
"Who is this man?" - "This is my wife." :)
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Well, "man" can also mean (or could mean) "person", I think, but now with the political correctness and gender stuff... things are changing.
I don't know why, but I always assume that чебвек is a boy. I need to work on that
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"Человек" (not чебвек). And "a man" but not "a boy".
Whenever you speak in general and cannot predict the gender it is advised to use masculine. Nothing to work on - you do it right.
12 November 2018: I read below but my answer of "мужчина" was NOT accepted.
Где этот мужчина? Is still wrong 3 years after the bulk of these complaints and reports. Notice that problem with a other entries especially in phrases 1. Has work on this been dropped or something?
Why is "вы где?" (where are you?) correct while the same order here (этот человек где?) appears to be wrong? And would "где вы?" be acceptable?
