"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).
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.
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".
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.