20 Comments
I do not know how it works in English , but in Polish you can clean your room and in your room, and it means the same.
Posprzątać mój pokój.
Posprzątać w moim pokoju.
1366
Thank you. I think if I hear "I am cleaning in my room" in English, I would think the person was not cleaning the room, but cleaning something else, such as clothes.
We have these 2x meanings in English also.
"I must clean in my room" has a different meaning from "I must clean my room".
The first is more general, its meaning exactly is "I must be engaged in the process of cleaning, while in my room" and could mean 1) cleaning the room, or 2) clean a bit of the room, or even 3) clean something else in the room (as James points out above).
The second very specifically states only meaning #1
What the hell... Why in one sentence "muszę" is "I must", and in another is "I should"? How should I distinguish?
it's hard to say without context, why was "muszę" ever translated to "I should", but it is usually "I have to" or "I must"
Previous task was "muszę pomóc mamie" or suchlike, and "I must" wasn't accepted, but there was stated that "I should" is ok. And it is always accepts "I need". Brain exploding word)))
You can 'czyścić' some surface, I'd say. 'posprzątać' (or imperfective 'sprzątać') works well with rooms. It's more like tidy up, actually.
- 373
Why is posprzątać, rather than sprzątać, used in this particular sentence?
Because you'd probably want the room to be tidy when you finish, not just that you worked for some time but it still doesn't look that great ;)
Although technically it works as well.
- 373
Thanks, that makes sense :)
Although perfective/imperfective verb forms will cause me trouble for some time yet...
Related: Why did Duo offer us just sprzątać in various earlier exercises, e.g.
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W soboty sprzątam mój pokój (On Saturdays I tidy my room)
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Ona pomogła nam sprzątać dom (She helped us clean/tidy the house).
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Mama zaczęła sprzątać pokój. (Mum has started to clean/tidy the room) - presumably OK because she hasn't finished yet.
I do agree with JamesTWils.
Well, the first one is for sure imperfective, because it's in Present Simple, and it's impossible to use perfective in the Present Tense.
The second one indeed could be both, as written by James.
The third one has to be imperfective because she indeed hasn't finished yet. Not in this sentence, anyway ;)
- 1366
Perfective/imperfective is tough. Imperfective does not just mean that the action is unfinished, though, but rather emphasizes the action itself, rather than the goal. So in the first bullet point there, you are emphasizing the work that you do over a period of time every Sunday, rather than the completed orderly room. The last bullet point, as you note, is ongoing work. The second bullet point, I think (though I'd be happy to be corrected by a Pole), could be either imperfective or perfective. The imperfective here emphasizes the work, the actual drudgery, that she is helping us with. The perfective would emphasize the project of cleaning that she had helped us complete.
- 1366
Oh, of course, thank you, Jellei. If the first sentence used the perfective, it would be referring to a future action.
- 259
While I looked around wiki for posprzątać, I came across sprzątnąć (pf) meaning to clean up/tidy up. Would this be viable as an alternative?
