"Co pije chłopiec?"
Translation:What is the boy drinking?
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Could this word order be used to also mean "what is drinking the boy?" Of course this wouldn't make sense in real life, but could it in theory also mean this? (As in a vampire or something)
I dont think so, its not so much the word order that indicates whos doing what but the cases. I think 'what is drinking the boy' would have to take 'chłopsa'?
I don't understand where co is used it just seems to crop up randomly, które and jaki seem a lot more methodical but I do not get this
The basic translation of "what", like in "What are you doing?", is "co". It undergoes declension though.
The 'adjectival what' (What bread = What kind of bread) is "jaki" and its forms.
"który" means "which".
- 801
If you were to write
Co chłopiec pije [mleko]
Then does that mean
"What boy is drinking (milk)"
And because we want to know what the boy is drinking, not which, the word order is that way?
"Co pije chłopiec" is also correct. It depends on what you want to emphasise. You should put 'chłopiec' last if the context is something like: "The girl drinks juice, but what does the BOY drink?"
"What boy is the milk drinking" would be "jakiego chłopca pije mleko" if you wanted to leave the same word order. But the emphasis would be on 'mleko' here, similar to the aforementioned example.
