- Forum >
- Topic: Polish >
- "It is dark in my house."
"It is dark in my house."
Translation:W moim domu jest ciemno.
15 Comments
A good way of remembering "ciemno" (at least for me): think of a chimney, it is very dark in there ;)
You seem to ask a lot of questions about the word order. Again, this is maybe not wrong, but also not a very natural word order...
Thanks for your replies!
Indeed, Polish word order is still a bit eluding to me. Actually, I had expected that the word order would be rather more free. It seems to be more or less as strict as that of Dutch.
I guess, in this case, the rule might be that you shouldn't begin a sentence with (impersonal) 'jest', while in the mean time 'ciemno' has to follow the copular verb.
I think that it's hard to figure out where the border should be, but I'd say it's safer not to accept the 'maybe not wrong, but still unnatural sentence', because what's the point in teaching you to make unnatural sentences? Even if you get a bit annoyed that your version was rejected, next time you will write a perfectly natural one...
No, that wouldn't sound good in this sentence. Sometimes you could, at least in spoken language: "Czemu tu (jest) tak ciemno?" (Why is it so dark here?), but not here.
Ciemno is an adverb right? I don't understand why the adverb is used instead of the adjective.
Your house can be 'adjective', but 'in your house' can only have an adverb. Well, in Polish at least.
If you wrote "W moim domu jest ciemny", you'd be asked "ciemny kto? ciemny pies? ciemny koń?"
Ale 'Mój dom jest ciemny' to całkiem poprawny. (Choć to nie ma całkiem to samo znaczenie.)
But 'My house is dark' is completely proper. (Although the meaning isn't quite the same)
"jest całkiem poprawne" (neuter adjective because you refer to "zdanie" = "sentence", which is neuter). And either "to nie ma całkiem tego samego znaczenia" (Genitive used) or probably more probable "ma nie całkiem to samo znaczenie" (negating 'quite'). But don't worry, that was quite good :)
Anyway, yes, it's a correct sentence, but I would most likely interpret the 'original' sentence as "There aren't any lights turned on" and your sentence as "My house is generally quite dark, even in the daytime, because there isn't much light coming through the windows and the walls are quite dark as well".
The slow voice pronounces single letter words as if they were single letters (of the alphabet). But the normal speed voice doesn't.
