"I am a man, you are a woman."
Translation:Ja jestem mężczyzną, ty jesteś kobietą.
31 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
wait, why do you need the pronouns here? I learned they were optional because the verb form has them already. Does it change the feel of the sentence with/without them?
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I would guess that you need "ty", but not necessairily "ja". If the sentence starts with "Jestem", you understand that the subject is me. But in the subclause the subject changes from me to you, so then "ty" is needed before "jesteś". I wrote "Jestem mężczyzną, ty jesteś kobietą." and it was accepted.
Of course pronouns aren't necessary. But they are rather necessary if we want to emphasise opposisitions (opposite features). But first pronoun might be missed anyway.
There are two clauses in this phrase, and there are different subject in these clauses.
And in Polish, when you change the subject in the middle of the phrase, you need to specify that explicitly, except in conditional phrases and (perhaps) in poetry.
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In this case, that is two compared sentences, i would think they are rather necessary. But it's only my feeling.
Given the fact that the subject changes in the second clause, the second clause really should use the pronoun to emphasize the contrast between them. In the first one it's not obligatory, although I would recommend it here anyway.
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My wife, who is Polish and didn't learn English until she moved to the states in high school, says the pronouns are not necessary and would be surprised to hear anyone use them.
I'd say this isn't a proper sentence in English, which might be part of the problem here. As it's two independent but related clauses, they sould really be connected with a semicolon in English. "I'm a man; you're a woman." But it seems Polish doesnt work in the same way?
That's really unclear why "ty" is needed. "jesteś" always means "you are". It seems that 1 mod has decided he thinks it sounds better, even though a lot of other native speakers, including Polish teachers have reportedly said it's unnecessary. I just want to know which is true. I also speak Spanish, and if you want to sound fluent, you definitely should not include unnecessary pronouns. So, I don't mind putting "ty" is it's grammatically correct, and more fluent, but I don't want to be lead down the wrong path to use pronouns unnecessarily.
I have read the different comments over here, but nothing is indicating that "Jestem mężczyzną, jesteś kobietą" is grammatically wrong. In @ Duolingo It should be accepted with the remark "another solution : Ja jestem mężczyzną, ty jesteś kobietą." IMHO that would be more appropriate, certainly for novices at this level of learning process. @Jellei
You most definitely do not need the pronouns. Natives do not use the pronouns when speaking that often and it should have been accepted without them.
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It makes sense to me after reading the discussion comments here that this sentence should allow for "another solution" when the pronouns Ja and Ty are not used. I agree with Karel 778963 that the context makes all the difference. With so many opinions expressed here, it would make sense that more than one context does exist, and should be allowed.
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There seems to be a lot of controversy with this practice phrase. Could the monitor go to an expert on Polish language to resolve the disagreement? Seems to be that many cite disagreement with what the monitor says he will allow, and the context behind the phrase.
The personal pronouns like ty, one, wy, ona... aren't necessary to use. You just need to change a form of verb and that's all.
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There seem to be exceptions: if there is a doubt who you are speaking about. As in this sentence. First you speak about yourself "ja jestem" or "jestem", and then the verb comes again in another form. If it would say just "jestem mężczyzną, jesteś kobietą" it would sound strange, as if you still were speaking about yourself when you say "jesteś", just in the wrong form. So what I mean is: if you started a sentence, with or without pronoun, speaking about one person/subject, you have to use a pronoun when you introduce yet another person/subject.
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Can anyone explain the pronunciation of the 'ą'? Struggling to get my head round it phonetically, but also interested in how it makes a sound so different to the English 'a'
I was told that the Polish ą sounds similar to the nasal a sound in the French word, croissant.
Not so, it's not the "en" in "croissant" sound. It is similar to the French "on" or the second vowel in "ils ont" or "ils sont," but less nasal and we don't really pronounce it clearly at the end of the word.
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I got the sentence correct, except for the accents which I cannot type . I did not have spaces around the comma. The computer said i got it wrong.
You have to put a space after any punctuation mark. The grading program strips the sentence off of punctuation marks, so the two words become one.
? jestem = I am jesteś = you are Don't the verbs indicate who the subjects are?
They do, but if the subject changes in the middle of the sentence, that is something unexpected, something you must provide a reason for. The reason here is contrast, which is expressed by emphasizing the subject (adding ty). And it's even better if you also add a contrastive 'a' after the comma.
