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- Topic: Polish >
- "Młodzież jest wesoła."
12 Comments
In English, we would say "The youth are cheerful." It is very uncommon to refer to a single person as "a/the youth." It seems very unnatural to me, is this acceptable in Polish? If so, perhaps the translation of "youth" is incorrect?
Your version works.
A lot of nouns depicting groups of people are singular in Polish. Plural wouldn't work grammatically here, you'd need to change the subject for example to "młodzi ludzie" = "young people".
It does not matter what the Polish is, the English has to work as English. The fact that the Polish is singular must be apparent from the way the material is presented, not by twisting the English into a place it should not go.
That comment is more than 2 years old. "The youth are cheerful" is the main English answer now. For at least a year, from what I see.
I put 'youths are cheerful' as where I am from, we would never say youth. It just wouldn't make sense here.
210
The youth are cheerful is nit something we would say in English. i put "the young are cheerful" which was marked wrong.
- 113
Just to understand it correctly, all those nouns that are solely used in plural: Would one also describe “Młodzież” as the period of adolescence one lives through until adulthood? Or would one therefore use a different noun? Just sprang to my mind when I had to translate this sentence again, and no-one seems to have asked it before.
The time of adolescence is "młodość", kinda like "youngness" ;) "młodzież" is definitely about people, "youth" as a collective noun.
- 113
Thanks a lot! I would pass your literal translation of “młodść” as a poetic expression in German; “Jugendheit” doesn't sound that bad after all, unlike “youngness”. :D
