"Which men speak Polish?"
Translation:Którzy mężczyźni mówią po polsku?
6 Comments
410
I once wrote a comment about it:
"Który is asking 'which one of the finite set of choices is the one' while Jaki is more like "what kind of":
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"Którego psa brakuje?" – Is asking which dog is missing; most logical context would be, I don't know, like aftermath of a flood in the kennel and the expected answer would be "Azora"(a dog name).
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"Jakiego psa brakuje?" – Is asking what kind of dog is missing; most logical context would be if you are preparing for a dog show and you have a list of dog breeds you want on that show, so you ask which breed is still missing; expected answer would be something like "Sznaucera"(A dog breed).
Obviously, there is certain overlap between the two, but generally they ask about somehow different things."
„Jacy mężczyźni” = 'What kind of men', which sort of works like 'Who are those weirdos that speak Polish?' here. ;) I don't know, possibly it's because it asks about the kind of human, but it gives me this disapproving vibe.
Thank you for you explanation. I was more or less aware of this difference in meaning, but still felt that the English sentence could have been interpreted both ways. However, after reading your example I admit that którzy is indeed the better option here.
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is there a list somewhere of when to use a different word for what, where, who, etc?
what (as in "What is it?") = co
what (as in "What kind of...?") = jaki
where = gdzie
who = kto
Out of those, only "gdzie" doesn't undergo declension.
