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- "All these walls are red."
"All these walls are red."
Translation:Te wszystkie ściany są czerwone.
12 Comments
319
Could we, according to this sentence, claim that “wszystko” is also able to function as an adverb? Otherwise, I would find this sentence rather... Unusual. Not agrammatical or unnatural, but simply unusual. I then had to translate it as “These whole/entire walls are red”, if I were to translate this sentence literally.
"wszystko" can have two meanings: firstly, it's a pronoun meaning "everything" (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/wszystko), secondly it's an adjective/pronoun (English and Polish Wiktionary do not agree on that) meaning "all, every, the whole of" (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/wszystek#Polish). The second meaning is rather rare, I'd say. Sure, we use "wszyscy" and "wszystkie" a lot, but that very rarely means "the whole of".
I guess the second Wiktionary article means that your translation is technically correct, but I have doubts if that's something we should accept.
319
Thanks a lot! And I think I would not agree on the position of “wszystko” as an adjective as it clearly indicates the plurality of an object, i.e. objects present. It does not describe it from a point of its recognisable attitudes but its quantity. As a pronoun, it makes sense to me. Is there an alternative translation to “the whole of” (Which, if I understood you correctly, would be synonymous to “entire” or “complete”, which I think was already introduced previously in this course, I had to check my notes on that) that is more frequently used, either in colloquial or formal language? (Perhaps regardless of the register applied in one's speech)
Well, don't add a translation or any other moderator cannot stand firmly behind it. I am in no position to lecture a native speaker of Polish on his or her language, I am here to learn it.