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- "I like watching you!"
"I like watching you!"
Translation:Szívesen nézlek!
39 Comments
It's also used for that.
It's the adverb form of szíves "kind", which is derived from szív "heart", so it means "kindly" but also "gladly".
You may have come across legyen szíves which is one phrase for "please" - literally, "be (so) kind".
So as a response to thanks, it's short for something like "(I did it) gladly, with pleasure".
And here, it's something like "I watch you with pleasure" as well.
Why not correct is "Szeretlek nézni téged" ? I like = Szeretem watching = nézni you = te
I like you = Szeretlek/Szeretlek téged
412
"Szeretlek" is "I like you", as I'm sure you're aware. To place "nézni" after that would not alter the meaning of "Szeretlek" in the way that you'd hope it would. You need to get that "nézni" into the middle of the "Szeretlek", so to speak. You might try "Szeretek nézni téged". No promises, mind you.
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Greg, if your subject is én and your direct object is téged, you need to use the '-lak/-lek' form of the verb, no matter how many other verbs are in the same cluster.
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So, was the suggestion, "Szeretlek nézni téged", correct? It would seem to me to translate to something like "I like you, to watch you.", without the first "you" becoming a second subject or sorts.
You answer might greatly change my understanding of the "-lek" construct.
After I wrote my comment here (via the app, not seeing that the original was 3 years old), I read further through the other comments, finding yours and becoming somewhat unsure about what I had written.
Thanks, in advance and in case I run out of reply levels!
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Greg, yes, that sentence is correct, even though the word order makes it sound a bit creepier than probably intended.
Hungarian grammar works a bit differently in this aspect than English. In English, if you have such a verb chain, the second verb essentially becomes the object of the first. So instead of "I love you" it becomes "I love watching." That's not the case in Hungarian, where explicit verbs cannot be objects. So "Szeretlek" just gets expanded to "Szeretlek nézni."
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Thanks.
As for it making the Hungarian creepier, I think the English is pretty creepy to begin with.
Isn't "Szeretek téged nézni" also correct? Duo won't accept but that's Duo... Otherwise, isn't "szeretLEK téged nézni", as Duo suggests, a bit too much of Accusative case? I though that the Accusative "you" here is for the "watch" verb, and "I like" refers to the act of watching rather than to "you"... I hope I make the point of my confusion clear ^^
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"Szeretek téged nézni" is incorrect for that exact reason - if the subject is the 1st person singular (én) and the direct object is a 2nd person (téged or titeket), you have to use the -lak/-lek form. It's a conjugation like any other verb form.
Szeret and néz form a verb group here, so to say. They have a common subject and a common object, because they're referring to one and the same action - liking to watch. Only szeret gets conjugated for the subject and object, and néz becomes infinitive. Any other European language (that I'm aware of) works the same.
"to watch" means "nézni". "Néz" is porposefully looking at something, while "lát" only means you see something. "Látlak" = "I (can) see you." And "Szívesen látlak" would mean something like "You're welcome (here)".
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Thank you, but it is not yet clear to me. I see you - látlak ??? (if I see you in a crowd of people) I look at you - nézlek (even if I am looking deep in your eyes?) or is it then also látlak?
Ich versuche es zu erklären in Deutsch. Bitte verzeihe mir die grammatische Fehlern.
"Látlak." = "Ich sehe dich." oder "Ich kann dich sehen."
"Ich kann dich in der Menschenmenge sehen." = "Látlak a tömegben."
"Szívesen nézlek." = "Ich beobachte dich gerne."
"Ich schaue mir das Video an." = "Megnézem a videót."
"Ich schaue tief in deine Augen." = "Mélyen a szemeidbe nézek."
So "lát" ist nur die Fähigkeit etwas sehen zu können und "néz" bedeutet schauen, sehen weil ich es wolle zu tun. Ich weiß nicht ob diesen Unterschied existiert in der deutschen Sprache oder nicht.
Ich hoffe dass ich habe nicht nur mehr kompliziert gemacht es zu verstanden. :)
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Vielen Dank Imorth, diese Erklärung hilft mir gut weiter. Nein du hast es nicht komplizierter gemacht, es zu verstehen. Deine deutsche Erklärung ist gut verständlich. (Ich versuche es dir auf Deutsch zu erklären. Bitte verzeihe mir die grammatikalischen Fehler. Ich hoffe, dass ich es nicht noch komplizierter gemacht habe, es zu verstehen)
Gern geschehen. Wow, thanks for the corrections! German is a pretty tough language. For me writing a text is the hardest part, never really practiced it, the comment above was my first one. I quite like the language itself (guess I'm among the few) but somehow never really managed to memorise the grammar.
Watching is closer to looking. Like "looking at" a movie. Seeing is being able to notice with our eyes.
Anyway, "to watch" translates to "nézni" in Hungarian. In special cases it is "figyelni", when it is closer to "to keep an eye on", "to observe".
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Maybe it is clearer for English natives. I thought, that látni is for every case, when somebody "really sees" and not just looks at something.
Actually, the English and Hungarian usage is very close:
nézni - to look
látni - to see
And "to watch" is also "nézni". When you "watch" something, you intentionally "look at" it.
yes. 'Watching' implies looking/staring at something or a space/area for an extended period of time.
"Én szeretlek téged figyelni" is a correct alternate translation that I think ought to be accepted.
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SzeretLEK means already: I love You. Then your sentence would mean: I, I Iove you, you watching.
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No, no. Szeretlek is correct here. Téged is still the direct object of the verb cluser, so you need to use the -lek form.
You are right with "szeretlek". My typo. I meant to write, "Én szeretek téged figyelni" - which I still think is OK.
Does szeretek nézlek also make sense? Besides that, what's szívesen in this context, is it the superessive case suffix taking role here (on gladness)?
szeretek nézlek isn't correct - you would use the infinitive in this case, szeretek nézni but which does have a slightly different meaning.
szívesen is not a noun in the supressive (-en) case, here it is an adverb, as the -en ending can also turn other word types into adverbs (-en/-an is the same as the -ul/-ül ending, but some words require -en/-an and others require -ul/-ül).
These adverb forming endings (-en/-an/-ul/-ül) are almost exactly the same as English -ly. For example: glad->gladly
this is what Duo answered me: You used the wrong word. szeretlek nézni téged!
It is absolutely incorrect ... up to my knowledge. May it be szeretem téged nézni ? Or what else, but surely, not szeretlek ... ?
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Why should szeretlek be incorrect here? The subject is én and the direct object is téged, so you have to use the -lek form.
Szeretem would be incorrect because téged is not a definite object.
what do I like? Watching. Whoever or whatever. Again, I might be wrong, but this is how I read the sentence. Szívesen nézlek is unnatural for me ...
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It's actually not that unnatural. You just have to be careful how you translate it into English. (It's pretty funny, this is one of the few things about the Hungarian language that work better when comparing to English than to any other language I know. :D )
Okay, let's talk about "Szeretlek nézni" first. Nézni is the infinitive form of néz. But "watching" is not the infinitive of "to watch". "Watching" is the Gerund form, which is a noun-like entity, so you can indeed have it as an object of "I like".
But if you try to do the same with the infinitive, you'll run into an issue: "What do I like? - To watch." That doesn't sound right. That's because, unlike the Gerund, you cannot separate the infinitive from the conjugated verb. The conjugated verb and the infinitive form an inseparable unit, and the same happens in Hungarian. "To like to watch" is one action, has one defined subject and one object - "I like to watch you". Same in Hungarian "szeret nézi" is one action, and gets conjugated accordingly - "Én szeretlek nézni téged" Basically, the conjugation stays the same, whether you have an infinitive in the sentence or not.
Now, back to the Gerund form, "watching". In English you can use this directly as an object to another verb. You can just say "I like watching" or, say, "Reading is good" and it's not incomplete. Hungarian has something similar to the Gerund as well, what I call "direct noun" or "action noun". The action noun of néz is nézés - "watching". And you can use this as a direct object to another verb, too! "Én szeretem a nézést." - "I like (the) watching."
The major difference between action nouns in Hungarian and Gerunds in English is that Gerunds can take direct objects - "I like watching you" or "Reading books is good" - while action nouns can't. There might be some way to work around it, but I'm not certain about that. Maybe something like "Szeretem a nézésedet".
Now, about "Szívesen nézlek", that's even easier. Nézlek means "I watch you" and szívesen is an adverb meaning something like "gladly". "I gladly watch you", literally.
In English "I like watching you" means the same thing as "I like to watch you." There is nothing at all weird about saying "What do I like?" Answer "to watch." Just google "I like to watch." There are 110,000,000 hits approximately.
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Reading through my comment again, I'm not sure why I was explaining the gerund-infinitive distinction at all. :´)
I agree that "I like watching you" and "I like to watch you" are the same in English. I don't agree that "To watch" as a reply doesn't sound weird.
Duo is correct with the translation provided. “Szeretem téged nézni” is an incorrect formulation.
