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- "Children are little people."
"Children are little people."
Translation:Dzieci to mali ludzie.
52 Comments
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.
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).
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”.
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".
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.
2157
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?
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