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- "Kati a fölé a trafik fölé kö…
"Kati a fölé a trafik fölé költözik, amelyikben én is dolgozom."
Translation:Kati is moving in above the tobacco shop in which I work too.
29 Comments
I find funny that nobody, so far, was troubled by "én is". What is the meaning of the whole thing??? Does Kati work with me?? So, what is she doing above "our" shop?? And why "moves" and not "goes", for instance? Is she going to open a new shop above the old one? My translation was considered "right" but I didn't understand what it meant ...
724
Kati takes residence in one of the apartments above that tobacco shop there. And I work in that shop, too. What a coincidence!
Költözik is "to move house", to change your place of residence, not just "to move" or "to go".
Thank you for trying to add some meaning to the sentence! My whole point was that the sentence WITH "IS" does not make much sense, if we don't have (or don't imagine) a suitable context (whereas it would sound perfectly clear without this "is") By the way, I was wondering if - in the context you have imagined - the word "is" could not be translated as "precisely" (or sth of the sort) to emphasize the coincidence in this hypothetical context ?
- 724
Phew. I wouldn't translate it as "precisely" or something similar, but I think to figure that out exactly would be a task for an actual native English speaker. The is being there makes sense to me (I think it's a thing in Central to Eastern Europe to do), but maybe not in English. It's just an indicator for
- Thing A happens to the shop (Kati moves in)
- Thing B happens to that same shop as well (I work in it)
There is no emphasis on that conicidence, just a mentioning why I have a special relation to that particular shop. You can leave the is out and still make perfect sense of it.
Thank you again. I think that considering "trafik" as the common thing implied in both statements by the "is" (as you have done) is the only correct interpretation, capable of extracting some sense out of it. Anyway I still have some trouble in dealing with the position of "is". Another interesting remark of yours - this "is" (which is = "too", but not only/exactly that) as a thing in Central/Eastern Europe: well, despite Hungarian being an alien linguistic organism in the area, I think we do have "coincidences" here, such as the Russian и, which is = "and", but also "too" (but Russian allows - so it seems to me - much more freedom in word order, according to the tasks of the speaker, than Hungarian)
Sometimes it is the... which and sometimes it is that... which. Confusing!
This sentence means that Kati is moving in above the/(that?) tobacco shop, and I also work in the tobacco shop, right? Not that Kati is moving in above the tobacco shop where I work, and someone previously discussed person is also moving there? Because the allegedly "correct" English sentence ("Kati moves above the tobacco shop in which I work, too.") I would parse as "Kati moves [to a place, with identifying details] too."
- 724
You're correct. In the other case that Kati does the moving-in as well as another person, the is would be placed after Kati.
Picture a two-story building with the shop on the ground floor, and an apartment on the floor above it. Kati is moving into the apartment above the tobacco shop.
- 24
Could we use "moves in above..." here to make it more obvious what kind of move we are talking about? Would it sound too weird?
- 15
Funny that americans are having trouble with 'moving' in above stores. Usually here we have separate districts for commercial and residential, but europeans often have flats in the spaces above stores.
There are plenty of apartments in the US that are in buildings having a commercial business on the ground floor.
OK, no problem! I was just pointing out that I don't think Americans in general have trouble with that idea. At least, not the ones I've known. Even if someone has never lived above a store, most of us know that many people do.
Oh, I guess I didn't notice. :)
The thing I have trouble with is sentences like, "I am moving next to the airport." (That was another exercise.) That just doesn't sound right to me, although some other people said they thought it sounded fine. But it sounds like there's something missing, like it should say, "I'm moving to a place next to the airport" (or to the place, or to that place). The way I think about it, if you're moving, you're moving to a PLACE. But "next to (wherever)" isn't a place. A place is a noun, I'm not sure what "next to ..." is. So it needs a noun for the place I'm moving to.
Same is true for "above the tobacco shop." What is that, a prepositional phrase? Whatever it is, it's not a name or some other identifier for the place itself.
The "too" would be better left off or "is" translated differently. The fact that Kati is moving into an apartment over the shop in which the speaker works is not a concept appropriate for either "too" or "also." Maybe in Hungarian and other languages but not in English (nor Spanish. What about other romance languages?).
Funny no one mentions Fidesz banned trafik shops from selling tobacco. Now a better translation would be newspaper agent's shop
- 388
Tobacco shops have an age restriction. You cannot enter (in theory) without ID - a bit like a pub.
- 724
Eks, we don't the be here since the fölé already tells us where exactly she's moving to. But it can be added, of course.
I think the bigger issue here is the requirements of English grammar. English uses the verb "to move" for very different things, in this case for "changing your location" on one hand (which would be mozog in Hungarian), and "changing your residence" (költözik). To make that difference clear, you need to add something to the verb, i.e. "moving in" or "moving to".
