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- "Macie dzieci?"
33 Comments
Probably should be "Do you all have children?" to denote the plurality of "Macie" -> You (plural) have?
Although it is nice when "you all" or "y'all" is allowed, in English this is not necessary "you" is plural as well as singular all by itself.
yes, I've been typing "y'all" and now I've gotten this one wrong -_-
I really would appreciate emphasis on the plural of (you). Pretty please.
Polar questions (yes/no) are only conveyed through intonation? Or is verb-initial word order also used as in English?
447
Either by intonation, or by adding the word czy (cognate of Esperanto ĉu).
You could rephrase this question to "Czy macie dzieci?", although it could be misheard as "Trzymacie dzieci?" –Are you holding (the) children?
Don't forget to tell that pronouncing "Trzymacie" and "Czy macie" identically is wrong ;)
Is the difference in pronunciation that the 'rz' part of 'trzymacie' is voiced, but the 'cz' of czy isn't?
"Rz" is voiced when it occurs after a voiced consonant: "drzewo" - "tree"; "brzeg" - "bank"/"coast" or after a vowel: "marzec" - "March". It is devoiced if it occurs after a voiceless consonant: "przed" - "before"/"in front of"; "trzymać" - "to hold". In Polish voiced consonants generally are devoiced if they're ending the word and this rule overrules previous ones: "rycerz" - "knight" is pronounced /rycesz/; "malarz" - "painter" is pronounced /malasz/ (even though "rz" is after a vowel). "Cz" is always unvoiced. The difference I was talking about is quite minor or even unnoticeable for some English speakers, but it changes the meaning of many words dramatically. Polish distinguishes between affricates and stop+fricative consonant clusters, for example: "czysta" - "clean" and "trzysta" - "three hundred". "Cz" is pronounced /tʂ/ and "trz" is pronounced /t͡ʂ/. The same difference occurs between "ts" and "c" and others.
First is 2nd person singular, the latter is 2nd person plural. So it depends on whom you're talking to, how many people.
Is "ie" pronounced as two separate letters or one? Does it depend on if it's in the middle of the word or the end?
When I hover over the words it sounds like two in "Macie" and one in "dzieci"; but when she says the whole sentence it sounds the same in both words.
More like, "ci" is pronounced together, softening the "c."
The syllables in "macie" are "ma-cie." The syllables in "dzieci" are "dzie-ci." The vowel in the second syllable of "macie" is "e." Second syllable of "dzieci" doesn't have any other vowel, so "i" is pronounced there as one (in addition to softening the "c.")
This might help (with pronunciation in general). In Polish, lots of combinations of letters end up being what we'd call one sound. http://www.pronunciationguide.info/Polish.html
what is this?! i use small "d" do you have a children and it is not correct, why? what is the difference between small "d" and big "D" ?!?!?!?!?!?!
If you really wrote "a children", this might be the reason it was wrong.
Can someone tell me when to use the two forms of "you" in Polish, as in which one would be used in a formal situation and what would be used in an informal situation.
Out of two forms you know so far, it is not the case of formality. "ty" is what you will say to one person, "wy" is what you will say to two or more people.
Wait... So this can be translated into both, "Do you have children?" and "You have children?" I just started learning Polish two weeks ago, so I haven't 100% clicked onto all the different ways of saying things quite yet.
Yes. It can easily be a real yes/no question, it can also be like "what, you have children?"
Hopefully you don't (have children)! Please consider adoption, and population matters
