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- Topic: Polish >
- "Mamy dobre ryby."
22 Comments
I wrote We have good fishes and it did not accept it. Ryby is plural right? I think the translation is wrong.
then why did I write, ten words ago, ryby -> fishes and it accepted it?
Actually 'fishes' works here as well, although it didn't in December, when those comments were written.
The reason is: if you talk about different species of fish, then the plural is in fact "fishes". If you talk only about salmons, the plural is still "fish".
It goes like this: One fish, two fish, three fish...
Jedna ryba, dwie ryby, trzy ryby...
Exactly what did you type? Not all the hints are applicable to all sentences. Please pick the hint that is the best fit for a sentence.
Well... I guess in this context, it does make sense, there isn't really any closer translation. Added now.
1341
Sorry for a beginner's question: is the original sentence intending to mean "we have (possess) good (quality/variety) fish" or does it mean "we have (to eat) good fish"? Would someone tell me how to say both of those things in Polish, please? Thanks!
We have=possess. Polish "mieć" does not have the 'eating' meaning.
In case you're interested, the literal translation of 'possess' is "posiadać", so "Posiadamy dobre ryby". Rather a strange thing to say, though.
So "We have good fish" (Isn't it almost always "We are having good fish" in this meaning?) gets translated simply as if it was "We are eating good fish", so "Jemy dobre ryby".
Jellei - (Isn't it almost always "We are having good fish" in this meaning?) In answer to your query, I'm quite sure that the answer is 'no'! You could say something like 'We are having good fish TONIGHT' (because the fish was bad yesterday ) but we don't generally use the present participle (-ing) when expressing possession. I can say 'I am having a good time' but 'a good time' is not something you possess. I'm sorry I can't explain the complexities of the English language as clearly as you express the complexities of the Polish language to us, but I hope that helps.
But that's what I meant, that if I express possession, I say "We have good fish", but English can also say "We are having good fish" and it means that we are eating them. "we are having" doesn't make much sense to a Polish person.
Hmmm, I guess that the last paragraph of my message is rather confusing... well, I believe that in theory you could use Present Simple "to have" in the 'eating' meaning, it's just a lot less common, right? And in Polish, "mieć" doesn't have anything to do with eating.
"dobry" is a masculine form of the adjective, "ryby" are 'not masculine-personal plural', for which the right form is "dobre".
Several of the comments about 'fishes' are wrong. 'fishes' can certainly be used as the plural of 'fish'. That is quite usual, although it is more common to just say 'fish' for the plural. And it is not the case that 'fishes' refers to species of fish.
