"The boss is not inside, either."
Translation:A főnök sincs bent.
28 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
what about A fönök sem bent (I know the first ö is wrong). I thought that sincs was used for "there is no......, either". like there is no boss inside, either
You're answering your own question, I'd say. It really means "There is not the boss inside either".
You need a form of van in this kind of sentences, and sincs is one of those. Technically.
Neither is the boss inside. - That sounds like an acceptable English translation to me. . . .
That sounds like an even better translation, since it makes clear that it is the boss who is "neither"-ed (i.e. besides other people, the boss is not here), and not the place (i.e. besides outside, the boss is not inside).
This is the answer I wanted to give! But in my previous practice, the 'correct' sentence they gave in Hungarian for 'The boss is not inside, either' was 'Nincs a főnök bent sem' - which I felt was really, really wrong...but it was given as right. Confusion!!!
"Nincs a főnök bent sem." -- The boss is not outside, and he isn't inside either.
"A főnök sincs bent." -- The secretary isn't inside, and the boss isn't inside either.
Since the English sentence doesn't make it clear which meaning is intended, both should be accepted.
Ja, genau. :)
Einem Kommentar nach zu schließen, den du an anderer Stelle hinterlassen hast, hast du Probleme damit, das "either" hier zu verstehen. Es ist ein bisschen ein kompliziertes Wort mit verschiedenen Anwendungen. Speziell hier verändert es seine Bedeutung durch die Negation. Wo wir im Deutschen sagen würden
Er ist auch hier. (soz. beide sind hier) / Er ist auch nicht hier. (soz. keiner von beiden is hier oder er ist an keinem von beiden Orten)
macht man es im Englischen ganz anders und benutzt verschiedene Wörter, um diese "Auchheit" auszudrücken:
He is here, too. (oder: He is here as well.) / He is not here either. (oder: He is not here as well.)
1432
Danke für deine Erklärung. Ja, ich habe immer wieder Probleme mit either/neither und kann es mir nicht merken.
Ah, you can't have sincs at the beginning of a sentence. Think about what it means: sincs is the combination of "is nem van". But the is has to apply to something in front of it.
You can split the sincs into is and nincs, though, in order to keep this word order: "Nincs bent a főnök is."
EDIT: "Nincs ... is" doesn't quite work, it should be "Nincs ... sem". (Nov '19)
"Nincs bent a főnök is." is not correct. It should be "Nincs bent a főnök sem."
- 112
Thus if we unfold all these structures, you say Nem van bent a főnök is nem? Why two nem's?
Tielbert, I'm not sure there's a satisfying answer to that. Or rather, the answer might not make sense in other languages.
Nincs is used because the boss isn't at a specific place, and sem is used because he isn't there in addition to someone else.
- 112
Thank you. Can't we use IS in negative sentences? Why "Nincs bent a főnök is" is incorrect?
Tielbert, as I said, the explanation might not make sense. :)
It seems like with is it would rather sounds like the boss is at that place all of a sudden. But he's still not inside, so we negate it.
Thanks for that explanation. It really helps, especially because there is not explanation of sincs in the Lecture comments. Only van and nincs are explained. By the way the split Nincs...is has the same meaning as the construct Ninsc...sem, right?
Yes. "Nincs sem" might be even better here since you tend to use multiple negations to hit the point home.
