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- "Children are little people."
"Children are little people."
Translation:Dzieci to mali ludzie.
52 Comments
Are you sure you used the instrumental case after "są"?
Dzieci są małymi ludźmi.
The "tips and notes" say: "dzieci (children) are ‘not masculine-personal’ plural as well, because the singular word dziecko (child) is neuter."
So why is it "mali" (masculine-personal) instead of "małe" (not masculine-personal) in this sentence?
EDIT: Ah, now I understand! "Mali" belongs to "ludzie" which is male personal.
My correction said "dzieci to mali ludzie." Are there different ways to write this sentence?
Using 'jest/są' + Instrumental is a bit more descriptive, 'to' + Nominative is a bit like an "=" sign. It's hard to say if one is more common.
I'm having trouble figuring out what you mean by "descriptive" without context. Could you give an example of a situation where you would use "jest/są" over "to" (even if it doesn't use this specific sentence)?
I don't know how to explain it better. In general, I think basically any sentence is better with 'jest/są'. But that's subjective.
You may note that we don't accept the 'to' construction with personal pronouns (no for 'On to lekarz') and we discourage it with people in general ('Adam to lekarz' is not that great, although better).
"dzieci to mali ludzie"
"dzieci to są mali ludzie"
"dzieci są małymi ludźmi"
all these versions are equally good
Good luck, a bad bad read by inexperienced non neurosurgeon doctor. He confused an old injury with a new one. It's been a tough life but it goes on. We old Poles die hard. Zycie jest dobre i dluge.
Off line for unknown period, just informed of a brain bleed by the VA hospital. have to go.
Don't know how long ago this was written but gosh! Sounds awful! I hope you're ok!
That was written at least a year ago and Walkinthedog's last comment was 6 days ago, so he's still around :)
Adjective always agrees with the noun, which means that it always have the same case as noun and since „ludźmi” is in Instrumental(because 'X is Y' with „być” requires instrumental; more on that ) so is „małymi”.
Well, it can be either "Dzieci to mali ludzie" (Nominative) or "Dzieci są małymi ludźmi" (Instrumental).
45
Does anyone have a link to learn plurals? I'm confused about conjugation and I think it would be useful to learn.
There are two plurals: 'masculine personal plural' (or 'virile') - used for groups with at least one male person
And 'not masculine-personal plural' ('non-virile') used for any other plural noun: women, dogs, boxes, trees.
The right form for the first one is "mali", the right form for the second one is "małe".
"ludzie" by default include 'at least one man', or otherwise that would be "kobiety" or "dziewczyny" or similar. So the right form is "mali".
Thank you for the reply. Why 'little kids' is 'małe dzieci', not 'mali dzieci'? Don't 'dzieci' by default include at least one boy so it is virile?
Technically you can use "dzieci" to refer to, let's say, three little girls, just like you can call those girls "children" in English. It's just your choice.
But the real reason for which it is non-virile, is that the singular word "dziecko" is neuter. And the virile gender is literally translated from Polish as 'masculine personal', so that's why "dzieci" doesn't suit it.
So the method could be like this: put a word in a singular form and look at its gender. If it is masculine, use 'mali', otherwise 'małe'. Dzieci -> dziecko (neut.), ludzie -> człowiek (masc.), rodzice -> rodzic (masc).
Almost. In order to use 'mali' it must not only be masculine, but also a person. That's why we call the plural gender 'masculine personal' or 'virile'.
So when describing something plural, do the forms of mały get rid of the ł and change it to a regular l?
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A little earlier in this unit we had "dobrzy ludzie" and "starzy ludzie". Later we had "zli ludzie" and "mali ludzie". Could you explain why, please?
Phonetically, 'ri' doesn't exist in Polish (except for in recent loanwords, maybe), so the rule is that r + i becomes rzy.
Wow i dont understand, on computer the letter is ł - on app its just simple l, and the pronounce is different, on windows its ł like w, on app its just l, so i dont understand this
I guess you're talking about different sentences which use different forms. You have: mały, mała, małe, mali, małe. Only one of them uses a normal L, and it's this one. The 'masculine-personal plural' form is usually softened compared to the other ones.
Well... you mixed cases. "małymi ludzie" makes no sense grammatically, "małymi" is Instrumental, "ludzie" is either Nominative or Accusative.
It should be either "Dzieci to mali ludzie" (the Nominative construction with 'to') or "Dzieci są małymi ludźmi" (the Instrumental construction with 'jest').
So whenever I am using być to say a personal noun is another noun I need to use instrumental? That's why "Dzieci są mali ludzie" is wrong?
Yes. It doesn't even matter whether it's personal or not.
NOUN [form of być] [...] NOUN always requires the instrumental case.
https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/16373167/A-guide-on-X-is-Y-and-This-is-Y-constructions
