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- "My mom is writing a book on …
"My mom is writing a book on Thursday."
Translation:W czwartek moja mama pisze książkę.
19 Comments
My mother and my mom mean the same thing so both mama and matka should be accepted.
Well, here's the thing: firstly, if we accept "mom", "mother" is accepted automatically, and the other way round as well, as far as I remember. Similar with "dad" and "father". Even if we actually didn't want that, we can't block them from being accepted.
Now, we've been discussing it a lot, and decided that in most contexts, only "mama" will be accepted for "mom". "matka" will only be accepted if the sentence refers to motherhood in general, like "I'm going to be a mom!" For "mother", "matka" is suggested and "mama" accepted. It's possible that we've missed some sentence and it can be inconsistent there, but that's what we decided upon.
Now, about the 'why': in English, "mother" is more formal than "mom", but still more or less neutral. Nothing special about the word. In Polish, over the years "matka" became even "too formal". It is of course prone to interpretation and personal opinion, but our view is that if you say "moja matka", you are strangely formal and you sound as if you are angry with your mom. This is actually something that a school teacher pointed out to me when I told her something about "moja matka". The same goes with "tata" and "ojciec". It's just too official.
Woah, super interesting reply. Thanks!
Now I'll feel like a Polish Norman Bates whenever I say "moja matka."
Oh, don't exaggerate ;) This is a difficult matter, very subjective. I wouldn't be surprised if another Polish native, even someone my age, disagreed with me. But we decided to go in this direction, as with time it seems like 'matka' is more and more formal.
Oh, now I am missing German! I want to write W czwartek pisze moja mama...
doesn't na also mean on? please explain the difference between the use of w and na. Thank you.
It's not a completely literal translation. From what I understand, in Polish, you say you're "in" a day of the week, hence the "w."
confused.. I thought I read that words starting with 2 consonants took We, not W... is this something to do with the case?
It's mostly when it's W/F + another consonant. In other situations with 2 consonants at the beginning of the word, it's pretty pronouncable anyway.
But "we czwartek" is actually considered correct as well, just less common.
It's another accepted answer, although it focuses on the "on Thursday" part. Perhaps you made some typo and the algorithm corrected you to the main answer.
both "w czwartek" and "we czwartek" are grammatically correct, please amend this
Okay, added.
Note to others: according to professor Bańko, "we czwartek" is a lot rarer. But correct.
437
Isn't "moja" implied in Polish when talking about a family member? In similar exercises, the 'my' was optional. I had "W czwartek mama pisze książkę", and it was incorrect.
In general that happens if the family member 'belongs' to the subject of the sentence. If the family member is the subject of the sentence, then it really might not be clear enough.
