"Czy ten uczeń mówi ciekawie?"
Translation:Does this pupil speak in an interesting way?
14 Comments
1050
Hmm, "Does this student speak interestingly" sounds super awkward to me. I'm not sure what it means. Does it mean, "Does this student sound engaging?" Or maybe there's a better way to express this in English?
Yeah, I have been going back and forth about how I would express this sentence in English. I think some of the problem is that we don't really have a word that correlates well with how "ciekawie" is being defined. I think I would probably try to avoid an adverb-based construction and say, "Is this student an interesting speaker?". However, this is probably too divergent a formulation to be the accepted translation. Thoughts from other English speakers?
Well, if one can write interestingly, then speak too: http://sentence.yourdictionary.com/interestingly.
'Interestingly' is more a construct than a word. It equates to strange, or (to avoid the darker connotations of that word) curious, inconsistent or just odd. In spoken English this sentence construction would simply not be used. "Does this student [talk sense / speak nonsense] [have anything interesting to say] [speak well about the subject]" would be used as required.
Its use in written English is to introduce the concept and sentiment of something (usually a commonly held belief or opinion) being significant and incongruous, so worthy of your attention; the context of the curiosity being the focal point of the article / discussion. Its ambiguity is as likely to form the subject of further discussion ("What does he actually mean by using the word 'interestingly' here", precisely because it is an artificial word.)
There needs at best to be a variety of alternative translations (probably a shed-load of them), but some words just do not 'work' in this medium.
- 827
Does the sentence mean interesting in the sense of strange, at least in this case?
It means that the way in which he speaks and what he speaks sounds interesting for the audience.
That would be talking in a strange accent, using unusual vocabulary or speaking in an unusual tone of voice but not, as you probably intend, to say that the speaker has something of interest to communicate. That would be "an interesting speaker", but not "speaking interestingly".
how about this: "does this student say anything interesting?'' or "is what this student says interesting?"
Well, it seems too far. You can talk in an interesting way about boring stuff, or you can talk in a boring way but say something interesting.
- 56
While I certainly understand the essential meaning of the sentence the translation into English is awkward. If the term "interestingly" is used at all, it is used in writing or more formal speech to introduce a clause in which an abstract concept is being described such as:"Interestingly fewer people than expected attended the event". Also one often does not hear about someone speaking "in an interesting way" in English. An explanation can be interesting, or the words someone uses can be interesting,but the above translation -- while certainly understandable -- comes across as awkward.
I have to say that I don't love the Polish sentence as well and I wonder if "ciekawie" is even worth teaching in a course teaching the basics... well, not much I can do about it now.
