"Can you see the boy?"
Translation:Widzicie chłopca?
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75
"Can you see" is a bad translation. It should be "do you see," since możesz wiedzieć doesn't work in Polish.
- 768
4 ways to translate this one: 1. Czy widzisz chłopca? (singular) 2. Czy widzicie chłopca? (plural) 3. Widzisz chłopca? (singular) 4. Widzicie chłopca? (plural)
No, that would be like "Are you allowed to see the boy?" (still 'to see' with your eyes, not as 'meet him') or something like that.
From the point of view of Polish, such things like "can see", "can hear" and "can remember" mean exactly the same as simple "see", "hear" and "remember" and you don't translate "can".
- 75
The accusative case for a masculine personal noun is the same as the genitive case. Since he's the object of the verb, he takes the accusative case.
https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/ch%C5%82opiec#Declension
It's similar to the English, "Do you see him?" You wouldn't say "do you see he." "He" would be the subjective (nominative) case (chłopiec) while "him" would be the objective (accusative) case (chłopca).
Is it optional? Sometimes I see it in examples and sometimes it is omitted.
- 75
I'm not Polish, but the way I gather it is that omitting czy from the beginning of a question is more common and colloquial speech. In formal and/or written Polish, czy is used.
Ukrainian also uses чи (czy) at the beginning of questions sometimes, but it's far less common or required as Polish seems to be.
Well, this one's at least grammatical and without typos, but no Polish person would say that. In such sentences, "can see" = "see".
- 710
English tends to say "can you see" and "I can see" where other languages tend to just say "see you" (=do you see) and "I see".
That's location dependent. You'll find "do you see" being the norm in certain parts of the UK (e.g. South Wales) compared to other areas.
Without any particular thing to see? Either "Widzisz?" (sg.) or "Widzicie?" (pl.)
The proposal for the translation mentuons a different verb for "to see", that didn't come up yet. I only know it from "do zobaczenia" (or so, I only heard). Can anyine say what is the unconjugated form?
imagine ghetto grammar. "you see dat boy over there?" thats how the most of the world works. english is just a trash soup of grammer. i think "do you" and "can you" come from the celtic language tree
I traslated "mozecie widzic" .. I don't think a so big mistake .. do you see "widzicie"
- 75
Możecie widzieć is the proper spelling. Make sure you differentiate between Z, Ż, and Ź. They are separate letters in the Polish alphabet.
But "możecie widzieć", although technically it's fine, is not a natural Polish phrase. In most cases, "can you see" means the same as "do you see", and "możecie widzieć" is like "you are allowed to see" or at least "you are able to see". And at least with "you are able to see" is better translated as "możecie zobaczyć".
Można. Dodałem.
Explanation for whoever needs it: the infinitive "widać" is a good translation if we assume that "you" in the English sentence doesn't refer to anyone specific, but it's synonymous with "one": "Can one see the boy?". So the meaning of "Widać chłopca?" is close to "Can the boy be seen?" or "Is the boy visible?". It's a possible interpretation of the English sentence, although I'm not sure if I've seen anyone report it before. But I added it here.