16 Comments
Does a "robotnik" refer more to someone who does manual labor and a "pracownik" more to someone who does office or white-color jobs?
I know robot comes from Czech, but it's still kinda creepy basically calling workers robots
That was the entire point of the original stories - that blue-collar workers are treated as soulless and inhuman.
Well, "boss" is "szef". Generally it's very close in meaning... but it's still a different word.
Too vague. "The workers" suggests (although I guess it doesn't guarantee) that they are doing physical work, "employees" doesn't suggest it at all.
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Not true, this is translatorese. It assumes that workers are manual labourers, but white collar workers are still workers, as people doing work. Employees are employed to work. The subtlety is that 'worker' can have a derogatory sense, so we use employee to mean 'robotnik' in many of the situations one would use 'robotnik'. This is the problem with relying on translation dictionaries and education - no one is out there measuring the result of the dictionary choices.
Every time when the English sentence uses "workers", both "robotnicy" (manual labourers) and "pracownicy" (employees) are accepted. Not the other way round though. "robotnicy" are clearly manual labourers.
Jestem robot(nik). This word is funny to me. I am a robot / Jestem robotem. Oh, well. Moving on.
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I understand the distinction between blue and white collar work so to speak but I would still argue that workers and employees in this context are essentially the same, which is why I claim that my response of "the employees work for the director" should be accepted.
We accept both "workers" and "employees" for "pracownicy", but only "workers" for "robotnicy", the manual labourers.
