"Everyone knows the police."
Translation:כולם מכירים את המשטרה.
17 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
So why in a different exercise in DL within this level there is a question "He knows everything in his profession" and the word for "know" is יודע and not מכיר? That is not a bibical "Know". Why the difference?
1262
As AmirLFC wrote, יודע is used about knowing facts. When talking about one's profession, you talk about knowing everything there is to know about your job, which usually talks about knowing facts, information etc.
In English "everyone" is a singular noun. Thus the correct translation "Everyone knows the police." instead of "Everyone know the police." which would be correct if "everyone" was plural. Is that not true in Hebrew? Shouldn't the correct answer therefore be כולם מכיר את המשטרה?
- 1262
Well, this is an example of differences between languages. English uses singular "everyone knows" and Hebrew uses plural כולם מכירים. When translating, you translate it the way it is correct in the other language. So, just like you can't say "everyone know", you also can't say כולם מכיר.
- 1484
So: "nobody" is singular and "everyone" is plural in Hebrew? Do I get that right?
(I just have to remember that then.)
Why can't it be "משטרים"? Why does it have to be singular and not plural?
- 1262
Firstly, משטרה is feminine and the plural is משטרות. So, משטרים is incorrect. And plural משטרות would be used only in the sense of "police departments". So, when talking about police in general, it is always singular.
in proper regular English, "everyONE' is a single entity and therefore you're mistaken as the verb should be singular
- 1262
In English "everyone" requires singular verb, and Hebrew כולם requires plural verb. There is no mistake here, as different languages have different rules.