25 Comments
Would "I hope that she likes him" be a fair translation? It was marked as wrong, but as far as I understand, the subject of "αρέσει" could be any third-person singular thing. Help?
You are right. Both "him & her" are added now. ;) Thanks for the input!
The verb αρέσω means "I am liked". So it's much simpler: Ελπίζω να της αρέσω.
Της αρέσω=she likes me
Της αρέσεις=She likes you
Της αρέσει=She likes him/her/it
Της αρέσουμε=She likes us
Της αρέσετε=She likes you (plural)
Της αρέσουν=She likes them
You wouldn't put a το there at all :)
Remember that the "it" would be subject of αρέσει (it's the thing that appeals or pleases) and so you wouldn't use a short form such as το but instead a full form such as αυτό.
I think you might be able to use Ελπίζω αυτό να της αρέσει or Ελπίζω να της αρέσει αυτό, but don't take my word for it.
Is "Ελπίζω ότι της αρέσει" also acceptable? Is it equivalent? Are ότι and να interchangeable in some cases like this one?
Not exaclty. Να της αρέσει is used when you haven't e.g. given the present yet and hope that she likes her present. ότι της αρέσει means that you have already given the present, and hope that she likes it. "Να" denotes some kind of near future, but not as "going to"=πρόκειται να...
19
I wrote ´I hope it pleases her´ and was marked wrong. Why? It´s a literal translation of the Greek.
No, it's not; a literal translation would be more like "hope-I that her pleases-it".
You changed the word order (putting "her" after the verb even though της was before the verb in Greek) and did not (explicitly) translate the word να... perhaps in order to arrive at a natural translation.
And that is what we are looking for on this course: natural translations. These often have to deviate from the literal in order to get something that sounds natural.
Often, a literal translation is bad precisely because it is literal (rather than natural).
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Mizinamo - thanks for the explanation - but I myself would not include word order as an aspect of ´literal´, which refers to ´letters´. ´αρέσω' means ´I please´, which is closer to literal here than ´she likes. Omitting ´να'='that´ is also common in English here. To my ear ´I hope it pleases her´ is just as natural as ´I hope she likes it´. However, as the moderators say, you can´t include all variations, so no problem.
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Note also the French 's'il vous plait' - 'if it pleases you' - clearly equivalent
Would it be better to translate the verb "αρέσει" as the adjective likeable? Even though it is a verb? For example, "Ελπίζω να της αρέσει":I hope to of her, it/he/she is likeable? I find the construct confusing and can't correlate it in English. Any ideas?
One possible translation is "appeal" -- Ελπίζω να τής αρέσει would then be "I hope that he/she/it appeals to her." (i.e. that she finds him/her/it appealing).
