"Z jakiej jesteś planety?"
Translation:What planet are you from?
37 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
the "from which" is like one of the few actual rules we have- you always have
preposition+adjectives/other describing words+noun/pronoun.
Yes, AnCatDubh.
The syntax is the most captivating part of the Polish language.
I think "From which one are you of the planets" would be a better literal translation.
No, it wouldn't.
1.) You should use "what". "Which one" doesn't work here. It would be "Z której jesteś planety?" In Polish.
2.) "Planety" is a genitive and singular, not nominative or accusative plural.
The literal translation would be "From what are you planet?"
This word order is confusing to me. Why not z jakiej planety jestes? Or jestes z jakiej planety? Why split jakiej and planety. Is this more natural in polish?
I'm not a native Polish speaker, but my native language is Slovak and it's very similar. In Slovak you can say both "Z akej planéty si?" and "Z akej si planéty?" and both sound natural. Starting a sentence with "si" (jesteś in Polish) doesn't sound very natural, although it does a bit more in yes-no questions. You can always add subject (i.e. "you") to the beginning of the sentence, like "Ty si z akej planéty?"
Can this be asked in a sarcastic way to poke fun at a friend, as it is in English?
Why is jaki used instead of który? My Polish is still basic, but I have learnt that 'jaki' means 'what kind of' and 'który' means 'which specifically'. If I hadn't read the answer first, I would have written: Z której jesteś planety?'
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You're right. And both forms are correct in proper context. That said, for some reason when asking about places, e.g. From which city, country, planet are you? We use "Jaki" not który. I've never really thought about it, and man, it's weird. It seems to me that "który" is more about differentation from group of the same objects.
Thanks for the clarification. I suppose that all languages have their idiosyncrasies.
Well, we generally try to keep to jaki = what (what kind of) and który = which. The English sentence uses "what", the Polish one uses "jakiej". And "której" would indeed, as Kwarkje wrote, sounds as if there was a closed group to choose from.
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Forty years ago, the planets were still a closed group. Only those 8 (or 9) planets surrounding our sun were known back then.
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They really do. Polish have way too many exceptions in my opinion, being naturally evolved and quite old much of it is explained by history of it. Nonetheless, it still irks each new genertion of learners. Last time when it was reformed a little was a hundred years ago.
If I say "Z jakiej planety jesteś" or "Jesteś z jakiej planety" is it terribly wrong?
The first one seems fine to me and is accepted.
The second one sounds like something that perhaps could be said (rapid speech) but rather not written because you'd arrange the words in a more usual way if you only had a second to think the sentence through.
Thank you Jellei! I would precisely use the first, as the words are ranged exactly as in my language: "De que planeta és?" Dziękuję bardzo!
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The second one puts pressure on the "z jakiej planety". [ With rising intonation ] It's a form that could be used in repeated question asking for clarification [ as the answer was surprising perhaps ]
It's same as in Spanish, you can change the word order to emphasize the verb or the object [although in Polish there's more freedom ]
Well, literally that's "Z jakiej planety pochodzisz?", but we can agree that those basically mean the same. Especially that "pochodzisz" is accepted. Added now.
from which planet you are ? was refused. I suppose this is not correct English ?
Yes, that's not a correct word order of an English question. It should be "From which planet are you?" to be correct, although I believe that's not exactly a common order nowadays.
The repetition of "from" breaks this sentence. "Which planet are you from?" is also accepted.
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'Skąd jesteś planety' ... How does that sound please? I'd love to know because 'Skąd jesteś' is a phrase I learned early on from a travel guide and which has stuck in my head!
"Skąd" means "from where", that is why your sentence sounds like "Where planet are you from?".