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- Topic: Polish >
- "Are you a man?"
"Are you a man?"
Translation:Czy jesteś mężczyzną?
10 Comments
"Jesteś człowiekiem?" Is also accepted, but I would like to know when you would ask one and not the other.
Każdy mężczyna jest człowiekiem, ale nie każdy człowiek jest mężczyzną. (Each man is a human but not each human is a man).
"Człowiekiem" would mean man as in a member of the human race. So "Jesteś człowiekiem?" might be like in a fairy tale or a myth with centaurs, mermaids, or talking animals. A creature meeting a human for the first time might ask "Are you a man?", even if they are talking to a woman, a boy, or a girl.
Well, mostly because the basic form of the word is "mężczyzna", not "mężczyznak" ;)
"mężczyzna" is a masculine word that ends with -a and undergoes declension as if it was feminine.
Czy jesteście mężczyzną? - Are you all a man?
Doesn't sound quite right. It should be:
Czy jesteście mężczyznami? - Are you all men?
But that's not accepted here, since "man" is singular in the original sentence.
Does "Jesteś mężczyzna?" work also? If so what is the difference between "Czy", "być" and "to" since they tend to mean "are/is"
"Jesteś mężczyzną?" should work.
Czy doesn't mean are/is. It has several meanings, but here it's just a question marker, like "is it true that...", or "I would like to know whether..."
About the difference between "to" and "być" you can learn here:
