"Small and big ships sail on the deep seas."
Translation:A mély tengereken kis és nagy hajók úsznak.
22 Comments
The literal translation of the word "sail" is vitorlaz. If you mean Mennek, you should say the ships go, or travel.
I would agree with this, I thought that a ship "vitorlázik", not that it "swims".
Well, what other verb would you use then? I find úsznak a lot more natural than vitorláznak. And mennek is far too... simple.
True, but we still talk about "sailing"....
Don't we also still "hang up" the phone and "dial" a number even though the receiver does not hang anywhere nor is there a round dial?
It's a correct sentence, though it means that small and big ships only sail on deep seas.
- Tegnap láttam egy kis és egy nagy hajót a folyón.
- De kis és nagy hajók a mély tengereken úsznak!
I get it- so my sentence is emphasising "small and big ships" and not "something else" sailing on the deep seas.
I think my comment was ambiguous or I messed up the English word order. I meant that big and small ships sail on the deep seas and not somewhere else. It might help to get familiar with the parts of the sentence called topic and focus.
The phrase that starts the sentence (in yours: "kis és nagy hajók") is the topic. This is what you will form a statement about in the rest of the sentence.
The phrase preceding the conjugated verb (in your sentence: "a mély tengereken") is the focus. The focus is the element that excludes every other element of the same cathegory; in this case any place other than the deep seas is excluded.
This is not valid for all possible sentences, since it's not obligatory to include a topic and/or a focus, but it can be helpful when you're experimenting with word order and how it changes the meaning.
Your word order was fine, the italic threw me! (italicising "deep seas" would have been clearer). Thanks for such a good explanation of topic/focus- I think I get it now!
A hajók nem nagyon úsznak. Az emberek, vagy az állatok úsznak de a hétköznapi nyelvben nem igazán használják ezt.
Mondhatod így de nagyon furán hangzik.
Ismét csak azt tudom mondani, hogy számomra teljesen természetes ez a kifejezés, sőt, el sem tudom képzelni, hogyan lehetne természetesebben megfogalmazni.
Ez igaz, talan a 'hajózni' igét gyakrabban használjuk, bár itt általban az ember az aki a cselekvést végzi...
You can't say ships swim, but hajók úsznak is natural. I'd say that makes it appropriate to translate sail as úszik in this context.
“Mély” means deep. “A mélyek” means “the deep ones” but using tengerek after that doesn’t create a correct anything that I know of personally.
