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- "Obaj noszą białe spodnie."
51 Comments
Im a native english speaker and I really dont think "the both" is correct at all, on either side of the atlantic. The only time i have heard "the both" is with "the both of you / them" and even then i think of it as very colloquial if not acceptable though wrong
I thought mixed gender humans are considered masculine, while purely female groups are 'the rest'?
you are right, but it does not apply to numerals. but after mixed gender numeral you use masculine personal pronouns, adjectives and verbs
I am not sure if those are all but
obie/obaj oboje obydwoje obydwaj
obydwie for some reason is not yet in that dictionary (N. obydwie- G. obydwu-D. obydwu-A. obydwie-Instr. obydwu-Locative. obydwu)
obaj- two men, obie- two women, oboje man + woman obydwaj - two men, obydwie- two women, obydwoje- man +woman
no difference in meaning between obaj/obydwaj, obie/obydwie, oboje/obydwoje. longer version is less common, according to the dictionary but I prefer them
i forgot oba and obydwa. = for masculine and neuter not personal nouns.
oba is in obu/obie table, and obydwa is N=A obydwa, G,D, I, L obydwu
391
Mine is a love/hate relationship: I love the complexity I've already learned, but hate the complexity I think I'll never get my head around :-) :-(
- 391
You fell into the Polish to wear | to be wearing trap - unusually, two completely different verbs in Polish; only to wear is officially taught here.
- Jellei wrote the detailed explanation linked by several users.
- Later I summarised Jellei's essentials.
- alik1989 explains nosić and other Verbs of Motion in concise detail.
[5 Apr 2019 07:15 UTC; +links 08:14, 08:43; ed. 20 Jun 17:42, 15 Nov 12:50]
If you are looking for a concise summary, I once made one myself:
Verbs of movement (there are less than ten of those in Polish) show a distinction between habitual and continuous/current action. Nosić is habitual (also called indeterminate), whereas nieść is continuous/current (also called determinate). So, theoretically you would use nieść for "to be wearing", but unfortunately, unlike its counterpart nosić, it doesn't mean "to wear", only "to carry". That's why mieć na sobie is used instead.
- 391
Your computer was quicker than mine, but I meanwhile found & added my summary's link. (to a post just above my summary – only moderators seem to know exact links)
Your excellent Verbs of Motion summary really needs to be added to the (still nonexistent) Tips and notes for
https://www.duolingo.com/skill/pl/Verbs-of-Motion, an exercise I found really confusing at the time. It's good to know that there are less than 10 such verbs: that's a list I could actually learn, in contrast to all the (Im)Perfective Verb forms…
[5 Apr 2019 09:22 UTC; ed. 20 Jun 11:57 UTC]
Both wear white trouser. Was accepted, but shouldn't have been. It sounds like pidgin English.
Well, a British native I asked said that it would be okay... I guess putting this sentence in a context would make it more natural.
It's definitely wrong. I've never heard anyone use 'trouser' in singular, before, though it seems that it would be borderline acceptable (though I would stay away from it). However, if you do choose to use the singular form, 'trouser', then you MUST use an article as well - either "Both wear a white trouser" or "Both wear the white trouser".
Well, then it means that "both white trousers" is one entity, not "they both".
Firstly, the verb already specifies it, but I guess you could do the same as you just did in English and say "My obaj", "Wy obaj", "Oni obaj". Note that "obaj" means that you are talking about two guys.
- 672
Frequentative answer is right but present progressive is wrong? Suggest "They both are wearing white trousers." is also correct.
I sort of understand the reasoning for not accepting "they are wearing" here, but in that case, this sentence really needs to be changed/removed because "they both wear trousers (of any colour!)" is highly unnatural English. It needs e.g. a time phrase ("they both wear white trousers every day during the holidays") in order to be a sensible English utterance.
- 909
Why isn't 'both are wearing white trousers' accepted, it conveys the same meaning. Thanks for your help.
As I once wrote you, we're going to accept those - so the answer to 'why not?' is "because you're the first one to point that". I'll report this one, of course.
As coffeyj wrote "the both" is not an English construct. While Roman may insist it gets added and will report everytime it's not, you can ask any English native and they will tell you that it is wrong. You could accept "the both of them" but even that is maybe a little sketchy. Far better would be "they both are" or "the two of them". I hope this helps!
Yeah, we made a mistake with accepting those. They've been deleted, mostly, although perhaps not everywhere.
Do we want here to learn Polish? Why is the 'correctness' of English such a problem? If the learner understand (!) 'obaj' as 'the both' because of an influence of her/his mother tongue or another language, it proves that s/he does understand what 'obaj' means and that should be enough for the objective of this exercise
Every course "X for English speakers" is also a so-called reverse tree for people who speak language X and want to learn English. If a Polish learner of English stumbles upon this exercise, tries writing "the both" and has it accepted, then we have a problem.
