"Oni są robotnikami."

Translation: They are workers.

[geowoj]

At first I thought this said "They are robots!"

[tadjanow]

That would be "Oni są robotami!"

[radiolaria1]

The word "robot" comes from Czech, so these are related words.

[Miknairb]

I wrote " They are the workers. " and got it wrong. Shouldn't this be also accepted?

[lavendeltee]

Does this mean that their occupation is a worker, or does it just mean that they are employees in any branch?

[schmidzy]

I saw on another thread that robotnik refers to people who do manual labor, and pracownik is for employees who do white-collar type work.

[radiolaria1]

praca - job generally;
robota - manual labor;
so
pracownik - any worker;
robotnik (or pracownik fizyczny) - manual worker

[wiktorka234]

Will the sentence still be grammatically correct if I used "one" instead of "oni?"

[immery]

yes, but you need to use a noun for female workers- one są robotnicami.

[CostelloMusic98]

robotnikami is instrumental right?

[aGABT31]

Don't get confused CostelloMusic98 - It is instrumental but they can sing as well.

[Jellei]

Right.

[CostelloMusic98]

and how is your Russian going?

[Jellei]

Finished the tree, now I'm after about 20% of the reverse tree.

[lviv_citizen]

то есть, в особо непонятных случаях можно спрашивать по-русски? :)

[Jellei]

Я понял так с половину этого предложения, потому... не знаю, есть ли это такая хорошая идея ;)

[Jellei]

It's just that you can reply only until some level. Just as I am replying to a different comment of yours than the last one. Well, I'm trying to incorporate my knowledge of Russian into answers sometimes, so I will try if you ask :) Thanks)

[lviv_citizen]

this is really odd, but there is no "reply" button under your last sentence, so i'll write my answer here.
my question was if i could ask you in russian in the most unclear cases. but i get your point :)
and if you need any help with russian (or ukrainian) feel free to ask me, i'll do everything i can to help you understand.

[Moghammed]

I think "They are manual workers" should be accepted, but it wasn't.

[Jellei]

Well, why not. Added.

[KrazyKoala06]

Does this have anything to do with slavery in Polish? IIRC, 'robot' is from Czech and referred to forced laborers / slaves in the play that popularized the term.

[Jellei]

"Niewolnik/niewolnica" is masc./fem. for "a slave", "slavery" is "niewolnictwo".

[immery]

It it just means blue collared/physical worker.

WSJP.pl dictionary says "robota" has origin in protoslavic word that meant "slave work". In Polish since XIVth century it is mostly used in the "work", "result of work" meaning.

[lviv_citizen]

could it be "they are employees" as well?

[Jellei]

No, as "robotnicy" are manual laborers, 'employees' are a lot too vague.

[ChrisFlynn12]

Do all professions have both masculine and feminine words?

[Jellei]

More and more do (unlike in English, which tries to make the words gender-neutral nowadays), but while some new feminine words enter the language quite easily, some others are heavily mocked. The matter isn't easy, generally.