"Soha nem látok zenészeket és zeneszerzőket."
Translation:I never see musicians and composers.
16 Comments
Actually, in natural English, it would be "musicians OR composers". meaning that I never see either category.
I was going to report that as well for this reason. I do have a question though. In Hungary is it natural to use "and" in this case?
I have exactly the same question. Is the sentence natural in Hungarian? AND: Would it be phrased the same way to express 'I never (get to) see ANY musicians OR composers?
We have been accepting or for a while now. I wonder though, is and really that bad?
Imagine a bar that, someone tells you, is visited by composers and musicians. Whenever you go, though, you never see either. My impression would be that it's fine to say both I never see musicians and composers. and I never see musicians or composers.
In any case, in Hungarian both are fine — given a context like the one I mentioned. Logically, with and or és the sentence can be understood to mean that you never see the two together, but maybe one composer (and no musician) or one musician (and no composer). If there is no stress on és (or and), this interpretation is very unnatural, however.
1557
"And" sounds quite unnatural (at least in British English). You'd only use it if, like you say, you see composers and you see musicians, but never at the same time. In that case you'd put stress on the "and."
Using mathematical logic, 'and' would mean you never saw them together (as in at the same time and in the same place). The same logic seems to apply in spoken English.
Exactly. And if you want to say you don't see one or the other (or possibly either), you have to use "or" in English. I don't think it applies in Hungarian, though. But the translation should definitely say "or" for this sentence.
But what about the speaking part... if someone really say to me this.... after látok, I laught.
In natural English, it should also be Present Perfect. (I have never seen ...)
Not necessarily. If someone is talking about a situation that is ongoing (not seeing musicians or composers), then present simple is appropriate. I can imagine someone saying this as a complaint: "I NEVER (get to) see musicians or composers!"
Am I hearing it wrong, or is "és z" shortened to "ész" when spoken? Does a 's' sound followed by a 'z' sound get shortened to a 'sz' sound when speaking, even between word boundaries?
Hey JoelErisco1,
well heard! When és is followed by a word starting with sz-, zs-, z-, the sounds influence each other quite a bit in fast speech. To me, it sounds like she produces both the s and the z, but very faintly. In any case, this is not a rule you have to remember or anything, it's just a feature of fast speech.
I hope this helps!
Good. Always nice to hear from a native if I heard it correctly or if I'm going crazy. I like noticing sound changes things like that, in my own language and others. Hopefully it will help with hearing even if I won't be able to reproduce the fast speech bit fluently myself anytime soon.
A composer writes music, a musician performs/plays it (and a conductor guides musicians while they play).
