- Forum >
- Topic: Polish >
- "Are you listening to me?"
"Are you listening to me?"
Translation:Słuchacie mnie?
46 Comments
No, it's perfectly fine and accepted. I'd say it's the second best (singular) option after "Słuchasz mnie?".
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.
396
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.
- 2250
"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.
- 1341
Why is "słyszysz mnie" wrong? In English you is both singular and plural, not specified here, so why is my singular translation wrong?
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'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?
It is correct, sure. But it's not required. It's not even that common, in fact. But it works.
