"Oni są źli."

Translation: They are evil.

[Icystrider]

This makes me wonder what Polish people would consider evil rather than just bad, if both words are synonymous......

[luless]

Bad could be translated as 'niedobry', literally not good. So there is a spectrum of 'evilness' when bad<<evil, so niedobry<<zły. This is important when you talk about people.

Also zły can mean 'incorrect', i.e. incorrect answer - zła odpowiedź.

[Icystrider]

Thanks!

[ChrisHarshman]

Evil is almost never used, in this case it is not even bad but angry

[tryingveryhard]

Damn my lesson escalated quickly, from "Children like animals!" to they are evil

[Gabriel815156]

Mine went from "pld people are eating cookies" to this, which is even worse... XD

[C0RV3N]

Ale mają smaczne ciasteczka.

[Tanyusha]

How to pronounce it? Ź - [z], ż - zh? But there is another sound.

[EnacheAndrei]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_language#Orthography
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_alveolo-palatal_sibilant

[conor.raff]

I suppose you could also have "Oni są złe" if oni didn't contain any personal masculine entities, for example a pack of bad dogs or even a batch of bad cheeses (ser) or robots etc.

[immery]

no you cannot.

the gender of adjective needs to match gender of pronoun. But of course, women, children, animals and inanimate objects, can be evil too .

Oni są źli, (masculine persons, or a group that contains at least one person and one masculine noun)
or
one są złe (no men allowed)

[conor.raff]

thanks for responding but I'm not convinced yet.

Oni must contain masculine nouns, but they don't have to be people, right?
Lets say oni refers to a pack of dogs / psy

If they are not people, how can you use the masc. personal. plural form of the adjective.?
you have to use the other plural form.

for example...

"Psy są złe" is correct, tak? so therefore "oni są złe" has to be possible too

If you are saying "chłopcy są źli.", then you can replace with pronoun to get "oni są źli."

[immery]

Oni has to contain masculine personal nouns. It is the same with pronouns adjectives and past verbs. Only declension of noun and numerals take a masculine/feminine/neuter into consideration with plurals.
Dogs are evil is "one są złe, te psy są złe."

[Ash473779]

My mind did ponder over the same question, thank you very much for your help Maria. Compared to the complexities of polish, English must sound like babytalk to you guys :p

[conor.raff]

Thanks, I had a misunderstanding then about the use of "oni". Good to get that cleared up!

[PolyGlotLujan]

Is it zlo or zło? Or is it both? Im confused.

[Emwue]

The noun is „zło”, the nominative masculine singular adjective is „zły” – „ł” alternates with „l” in certain inflections(ie. both declensions and conjugations) in Polish, so here it is „źli”.

[nlesyk]

its zło

[Szotkowski]

Is the 'l' in źli pronounced like 'ł'? The recording is pretty bad and I can't tell if it's an 'n' 'l' or 'ł' sound

[Jellei]

Well, if it's not written with Ł, it is not pronounced as one. It's the normal L.

[KeithAllan5]

Is it possible to intone the word zly to sound more evil?

[r0setea]

What are the plurals of "are" then?

[Jellei]

we are = (my) jesteśmy

you (plural) are = (wy) jesteście

they are = (oni/one) są