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"Chcieć" is a transitive modal verb and "ciebie" is an object here – there is a caveat though, you are supposed to use genitive with abstract terms(like freedom="wolność", peace="pokój" and so on) – I guess because being close here can as well mean emotional closeness it also gets treated as abstract term. But that is just a guess, maybe there is a rule I'm not aware of.
I don't think it has anything to do with emotional closeness. You may want to be closer to window (on a train for example) and it still wouldn't use extra „do”. It seems more like a matter of language efficiency. If we ever used „do”, we may have simply dropped it because „bliżej” + object in genitive is clear enough.
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Sure, but I meant why Ciebie here is in genitive(dopełniacz) instead of accusative(biernik), which is more typical, when not talking about abstract terms – "chcę mieć (kogo? co?)psa", chcę zarobić (kogo? co?)pieniądze" but "chcę (kogo?czego?)wolności". "Do" would never exist here, because for transitive verbs we generally use declension to mark objects(direct and indirect) instead of using prepositions. ;-)
Well, maybe it's just me, but I feel like the original question was about the lack of „do” specifically, not about genitive case.
I am confused about this construction. The Russian word-for-word translation,
Ja chociu byt' bliże tiebia,
with the corresponding declension into accusative or genitive case, means "I want to be closer than you," Because of the comparative adverb bliżej, or "closer"/"more close", and the genitive or accusative ciebie.
In Russian we would say
Ja chociu byt' bliże k tiebie, meaning "I want to be closer to you."
tiebie(dative) = tobie in Polish "to you", and I don't know how the Russian preposition k translates into Polish if at all.
Russian "k" in Polish would probably be "do". Although sometimes you may see more poetic "ku". You must remember though that "do" and "ku" take different cases. But in this sentence you can use neither of them.
"Closer than you" is „Bliżej niż ty” or „Bliżej od ciebie”.
This makes sense in Russian too.
Bliże ciem ty = closer than you
Bliże ot tiebia = closer from you
So what would bliżej tobie mean?
That's sounds just weird, but maybe in some situation it could mean "closer for you". "bliżej dla ciebie" might be a better option.
Yeah same in Russian. bliże tiebie or bliże dla tiebia "closer for you." It seems the k is necessary for it to make sense. OK never mind then. I guess it's just one of those things that doesn't translate analogously between Polish and Russian. Thanks
Couldn´t it be: "I want to be nearer to you" ? Google Translator aproves this sentence like a synonymous of "I want to be closer to you"... and, if we use the translation between English and Esperanto, gives us the same polish translation: "Chcę być bliżej ciebie"..., even if we explore the translation back and forth. "Mi deziras esti pli proksima al vi".
Well, apparently it is correct. Added, then.
But really, Google Translate may be getting better and better, but it still is more of a help in understanding the general idea, than a really trustworthy source of knowledge.
