"Leżę na sofie."
Translation:I am lying on the sofa.
41 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
Lay is often confused with lie in English. Lie is correct in this case always.
Nope.
http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/lay-versus-lie?page=1
In short 'lay' = 'to put something down'. If something is lying by itself you use 'lie'.
I'm a native English speaker and its "lying" not "laying". As #tadjanow says, "lay" is what you do to something (or someone!) else.
There is a usage "lay yourself down" but it needs the reflexive pronoun (or whatever its called in English, don't ask me! lol), and its the action of going INTO that position, not being in that position.
Colloquially in some parts of the English speaking world you can use lay = lie (cf. Bob Dylan, "Lay Lady Lay") but its not middle English.
:) Middle English and correct English aren't the same thing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_English
At school our textbook used the term middle English to describe a form of standard English that could be used and understood anywhere throughout the modern English-speaking world.
This is totally different from the term Middle English (captial "M").
I did a google search for "middle English" and couln't find any instances of the old meaning I was taught. Maybe it's a term that is fallen out of use? Anyway, I will stop using it because it's so easily confused with "Middle English".
Maybe a better term for me to express the concept I wanted to express above is: "Standard written English".
Lay is also past tense of lie. "I lay down and fell asleep" vs "I lie down and fall asleep"
It should be acceptable. To this native English speaker lying just sounds wrong and clumsy. Unless of course the person in question is speaking untruths
I find it hard to distinguish phonetically between 1. Ps. sg. "Leze" (I can't do the Polish characters here) and 3. Ps Sg. "Lezy". Is there any clue to this?
Well, I'd say, there is no THAT much difference between these two sounds when they are not emphasized (especially in quick speech). So in such examples it's quite ok to confuse them.
I lie upon the sofa- so I am wrong for using 'upon' instead of on. Oh dear...
OK, added.
Isn't it a bit bookish nowadays, though? Neither in this nor the apple sentence no one apart from you has reported it.
I have to say that I haven't heard about "tapczan" for a long time. Googling it shows something quite different from a sofa.
Is there uniformity among words taking certain cases? Would "leżę na kobietie" be correct here and would the 'ie' ending be applicable to all female singular nouns taking the locative case?
"Kobieta" would change (soften) to "kobiecie" in this case.
Mostly -e or -ie.
Can you accept "I am lying down on the sofa" as a correct answer.
When you say "lie down", people know you are talking about rest, not about making intentionally false statements.
Well, I thought it's only used for 'changing your position from vertical to horizontal', but apparently I was wrong and it can work here. Added now.
Is there a difference in Polish between "the cat is on the bed" and "I am lying on the sofa"? Both sentences use the same verb in this lesson, but when "I" is the subject, the response *"I am on the sofa" is marked wrong.
I know that English uses the verb phrases "to lie on s.t." and "to be on s.t." for mostly separate situations, but I was wondering if this verb in Polish can be used for when a lamp or a cat "is" on the sofa, but if you talk about a person, it only refers to "lying down", so it wouldn't be appropriate if I'm sitting on the couch.
Usually we would accept just 'being' somewhere rather than standing/lying, but I think that perhaps here we should be more strict as it's also quite logical to sit on a sofa and therefore 'lying' is a more important part than usually...
"lying" has both meanings.
"laying" is used in some parts of the US, I believe, but it is widely considered to be incorrect English. It can mean "to put something on a surface".
I always say im laying on the sofa ... I'm a native english speaker... I'm kinda shocked lol
Why not laying on the sofa, is that not the same as lying on the sofa
In a spatial context it's:
po + locative - movement on a surface or an open space
na + locative - position on a surface or an open space
na + accusative - movement towards a surface or an open space
In different contexts, there are more meanings.
The company decided that we should indeed start accepting "laying". Added now.