"Are you listening to me?"
Translation:Słuchacie mnie?
76 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
No, it's perfectly fine and accepted. I'd say it's the second best (singular) option after "Słuchasz mnie?".
If you search the page for "Czy wy słuchacie mnie" you will see that this question has already been answered.
When should one use mi and when should one use mnie? Is one used for emphasis? If I understand correctly, this is the first person singular pronoun in the genitive, locative, accusative, and dative case.
In Genitive, Locative and Accusative it will always be 'mnie'. Dative will be either 'mi' or 'mnie'. And then yes, 'mnie' is emphatic, often used for some contrast.
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Is "ty słuchasz mnie" incorrect? Is there some reason I shouldn't include the personal pronoun in the question?
Czy ty mnie słuchasz? would be a full gramatically correct question. Ty słuchasz mnie. would be a good declarative sentence.
Could 'czy' not be used here? I'm sure I've heard it being used in this way before.
Well, you should avoid putting the pronoun at the end of the sentence, if it's possible. And it is possible here, because you could say "Czy mnie słuchasz?", which sounds better (in my opinion).
But frankly, the only two options that I'd recommend are "Słuchasz mnie?" and "Czy ty mnie słuchasz?".
I find it really strange that answers are rejected based on what sounds better in your opinion. This very same discussion has taken place in so many situations, and the bottom line is always the same: even though both options are correct, one option is preferable and hence you simply reject the other option. That's not how languages work and it's not how Duolingo should be teaching languages.
I've just discussed this for the umpteenth time with my significant other (who is Polish and a linguist), and she confirmed again that it's not wrong (nor clumsy) to put the pronoun at the end. While it is better to avoid putting the pronoun at the end, it is not the only option.
Considering that "Czy słuchasz mnie" is 100% grammatically correct, it really should be one of the accepted answers.
Before I address this issue, I need to get something off my chest. We get several commenters a week who try to prove that we are wrong by "having talked to a linguist, professor, native, etc". Those comments make me mad. And this is not because most of those claims are preposterous. It's because the argumentum ad verecundiam just isn't a basis for discussion. And now you're telling us that we make decisions purely based on what sounds better to us. Jellei will never tell you: "Well, I'm a native and this sounds bad. End of story." On the contrary, you will find a reasonable linguistic explanation in every comment. He made no exception here:
Well, you should avoid putting the pronoun at the end of the sentence, if it's possible. And it is possible here, because you could say "Czy mnie słuchasz?"
Now, let me elaborate on that. Polish has accented and unaccented object pronouns. It is obvious that unaccented object pronouns can't be placed in accented positions (e.g. at the very end while other options are available) as that would contradict their purpose. Now, what is mnie? About a hundred years ago, mnie used to be the accented version of mię, but the latter fell out of use, or "dissolved" into mnie, so to speak. So, one can argue that mnie is both accented and unaccented. Hence, there are almost no restrictions regarding the position of mnie within a sentence. So, indeed, "Czy słuchasz mnie?" is 100% grammatically correct.
If a sentence is 100% grammatically correct, does that mean that we have to add it? By no means. And here is a slightly exaggerated example that demonstrates why:
Consider one of the sentences in this course: Mama posprzątała mój pokój. A grammatically correct translation would be: "My mom cleaned my peace." This translation is 100% correct, yet we don't accept it, for obvious reasons. Of course, the matter of czy sluchasz mnie is far less tragic. But we need to draw the line somewhere. Someone has to be the one to make the decision which phrasing is likely enough to be accepted and which isn't. And believe me, that isn't as easy as you think it is.
Now, what's the problem here? The pronoun is put at the end, even though it's avoidable. As a consequence, the logical stress falls on "mnie", so you're basically saying: "Are you listening to ME?" Is that a likely scenario? No, it isn't. Is it possible that a native will use such a sentence, without actually intending to emphasize the pronoun? It is...
But if we accept every possible word order here, we won't be able to teach you the basic rule of pronoun placement. You will be prone to use the same word order as in your native language and you won't learn anything about natural Polish sentence structure. I'm convinced that you should learn the rule first, before you are allowed to break it.
Btw, my go-to Polish language corpus gives me exactly one hit for "Czy słuchasz mnie?" where mnie is put a the end of the sentence. Other options proposed by Jellei yield significantly more results.
Here's an overview:
| first person | second person | third person | reflexive | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| accusative | mię / mnie | cię / ciebie | go / jego / niego | się / siebie |
| dative | mi / mnie | ci / tobie | mu / jemu / niemu | se / sobie |
Explanation:
unaccented / accented
archaic, poetic, dialectal
uncommon, avoid if possible
only after prepositions
colloquial, slang
However, the mi/mnie disctiction is ignored by many natives nowadays. Even though the rest is largely intact, the emphatic-nonemphatic distinction might fall apart eventually.
By the way Alik, you say in your comment that Polish has accented and unaccented object pronouns. But I only know of one - ciebie. Have the other ones dissolved into each other too like you say mię has into mnie?
It really sounds rather strange to my ear.
Like "Are YOU listening to ME?"
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That's how I answered, and thought to interpret the statement like: "singular human, are you listening to me?". Not "plural humans, are you listening in general, which happens to be me.".
Czy słuchasz mnie? Dla czego jest nieprawidłowe? Dla mnie jest ok. Zapytałem koleżankę-Polkę i jej też jest ok.
Zamiast fatygować swoją koleżankę, mógłbyś spędzić parę chwil na zapoznaniu się z treścią poprzednich komentarzy.
Przejrzałem wszystkie level0 komentarze przed dodaniem nowego, jak zwykłe to robię. Dopiero teraz widzę to o czym mówisz, i to jest głębiej
Jeszcze powiem że rozumiem twoje zdanie (odnośnie "Czy słuchasz mnie"), i się zgadzam - jest logiczne.
As mentioned many times above, "Czy słuchasz mnie?" sounds like "Are you listening to ME?" and we generally don't accept those.
It is correct, sure. But it's not required. It's not even that common, in fact. But it works.
I used czy słuchasz mnie, why is it incorrect. This is misleading as it should say WY or (pl).
"some" (people). With this correction, I totally feel your frustration. You guys help us a lot all the time and not reading what is already asked and replied is quite arrogant and disrespectful.
I agree.
I dont know what metal Jellei and Alik are made of, but their patience knows no bounds.
I constantly feel (and fear) that one day they will pack it all in and we will all be the poorer for it.
Some questions IN THE SAME thread get asked 20 times.
I'm all for asking clarification or further analysis and explanation, but sometimes I feel frustrated reading the same question again and again and again and again.
If it was in a DIFFERENT thread, then I can sort of understand as we dont all always click on the same comments.
But in the same thread??
I feel we will eventually lose out on the invaluable service these moderators provide due to a few annoying people.
Maybe there should be a rule on the app which forces you to scroll to the bottom of the comments before asking the question, ensuring you've had a read of the rest of the thread.
Sigh
Adding "czy" at the beginning means that you now have a possibility of avoiding putting the pronoun at the end, by saing "Czy mnie słuchasz?". Which we accept, but really, the most natural way is just "Słuchasz mnie?", alternatively I'd go with "Czy ty mnie słuchasz?".
"Czy mnie słuchasz" też jest poprawne, powinno być zaakceptowane jako poprawna odpowiedz.
"słuchać" means "to listen to", you don't translate "to". It just takes an object without any preposition.
Czy mnie słuchacie ? = Słuchacie mnie? Lub: Czy mnie słuchasz? = Słuchasz mnie?
Why is "słyszysz mnie" wrong? In English you is both singular and plural, not specified here, so why is my singular translation wrong?
It's kinda like "ME you're listening to?" - it's not exactly wrong, but very unlikely. We rarely start sentences with pronouns other than the subject pronouns.
It definitely contrasts "me" with someone else - are you listening to me, but not to them?
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Czy wy słuchacie mnie is incorrect. Is it because the wy isn't needed? (I'm also often confused as to why sometimes we need to put "My" before the verb and other times it isn't correct).
We like to avoid putting object pronouns at the end if there is another place to put them.
Czy wy mnie słuchacie works.
Nothing, it's just that some sentences still miss Formal You options. Added here.
Would it be allowed to say "mnie słuchasz?", like the Italian "mi ascolti?"
We recommend "Słuchasz mnie?" or "Czy ty mnie słuchasz?", but we started accepting word orders like "Czy słuchasz mnie?" as well. Added.
You can easily avoid putting a pronoun at the end here by changing your answer to "Czy ty mnie słuchasz?".