"I love you."
Translation:Kocham cię.
14 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
153
I have a guess. I think "kocham cię" puts more stress on "love", while "kocham ciebie" puts more stress on "you."
1874
I think you're right. I just read a couple of explanations by Marek. He said ciebie is the stressed version of cię, and he remarked further that cię should therefore not be used at the end of sentences of more than 2 or 3 words. Ciebie should be used instead. I think it was he who also said on the other hand, you generally want to avoid starting a sentence with an accusative pronoun, unless you really mean to emphasize it.
No Polish person would ever say "Cię kocham", unless as some strange wordplay.
Generally putting a pronoun other than the subject pronoun at the beginning of the sentence is rarely correct and/or natural. If anything, sometimes you can place an accented pronoun (only some pronouns have a separate accented variant).
So in theory, we could think about writing "Ciebie kocham". But that means "I love YOU", you'd need to accent "Ciebie" strongly. Without further context (we have sentences like "I don't love him, I love you!"), we don't accept those emphasized pronouns.
It's possible, but it would need quite a specific context. Let's say someone says "I hate everyone!" and you ask "What, even me?" and they answer "No, I love you". Or in a way, "You - I love". That's basically how "Ciebie kocham" sounds - as if it was contrasted with other people.
Generally it's really rarely natural (or even 'correct') to start a sentence with a pronoun different than the subject pronoun.