"I want to be closer to you."
Translation:Chcę być bliżej ciebie.
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"Wam bliżej" could be used for "you are closer to", when comparing people (their qualities, character, relations): "Do kogo nam bliżej? Do Rosjan czy Niemców?" = "Who are we closer to? The Russians or the Germans?" (a real quote from Polish Radio). "Pod względem dochodów jest wam bliżej do Rosjan niż Niemców" = "by income you're closer to Russians than to Germans".
80
In Russian, the genitive case bliże tiebia means "closer than you," a different usage than the Polish genitive ciebie, and the locative case bliże k tiebie means "closer to you." Why is the Polish equivalent tobie not used in this example?
Closer than you is a comparison sentence. Russian has two constructions here, like: Я младше тебя or Я младше чем ты. The first one doesn't exist in Polish in this meaning, in most situations it wouldn't make sense - "młodszy ciebie"? what does it even mean?
Incidentally, this construction would make sense here, but with a different meaning: exactly "closer to you". I guess it's just that "bliżej" takes Genitive, simple as that.
"к" existed as "ku", but it's rather rarely used, it's dated. It mostly denoted direction (like in Russian), "ku tobie" (Dative) would also only mean that I am going towards you, I think.
- 80
So in my example, the Polish would be bliżej niż ty?
The differences in how Russian and Polish have evolved are just as interesting as the similarities.
Just like ku is outdated in Polish, the verbs "to be" have fallen out of use in Russian: jesm', jesy, jesť [still used for emphasis and for all the conjugations], jesmy, jestie, suť
Yes, "bliżej niż ty" for "I want to be closer to X than you will be to X".
So many similarities, so many differences... that's why it's so hard to grasp something sometimes when it's different...
