"Lányok, odaülünk az asztalhoz?"
Translation:Girls, shall we sit at the table?
28 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
The English version doesn't fit the Hungarian one, be cause - either the Hungarian should use the imperative - or the English should use the "shall"
1143
"Girls, are we sitting over there at the table?" -- In other words, "Where are we sitting? Over there by the table?"
- 1412
It's more like "What are we to do? Sit over there?" There is no focus on the location in the Hungarian sentence, just on the action of sitting.
It's a bit of a stretch to get "shall" out of a sentence like that, even with Word Bank. I was looking for a "there" in the selection.
- 730
In this sentence "shall" is used for making a suggestion. I think "Lányok, odaüljünk az asztalhoz?" would be better translation. (The precise translation of the English sentence is: "Girls, shall we sit at the table?" - "Lányok, üljünk az asztalnál?)
Yes and no. "shall" can also be used for future - and DL does not teach the imperative so that is all most people can use. However, I disagree about using -nál. We are moving and then sitting down - so -hoz is better. You would use -nál for "we are sitting at the table".
- 730
As far as I know that conjugation (e.g. üljünk) in a question always indicates a suggestion or asking for advice (in that case it is similar to the use of "shall" in English - 'Shall' is often used in questions in the first person singular and plural when making suggestions, making an offer or asking for advice - source) The imperative mood forms a command or request but never forms a question.
I disagree. As I wrote "translation of the English sentence", because the English sentence doesn't indicate any motion (plus 'there' is nowhere in the sentence). The Hungarian sentence indicates an action (as you wrote too) "moving from here to there" but unfortunately there is no "sit to" in English. Nonetheless, the literal translation of the Hungarian sentence would be: "Girls, do we sit there to the table?". (Check this) (Grammatically correct: "Girls, do we sit there at the table?") We translate "at" -nál (-nél), -on (-en -ön), -kor, or -ban (-ben) but -hoz (-hez -höz) is not in a single dictionary. Anyway, for example, "Ülj le az asztal-hoz." or "Ülj le az asztal-nál." means the same ("Sit down at the table."). Of course, if we use "oda-" ("to there") as a verbal prefix then the location suffix must be -hoz (-hez -höz or -ba -be -ra -re) because of the moving.
The imperative mood forms a command or request but never forms a question.
Except in Hungarian it does. Let's xxx or shall we xxx are translated in Hungarian by using the imperative mood. A plain will we xxx would be future.
the English sentence doesn't indicate any motion
Yes, it does we are standing and we move to sit.
All of which is beside the point as we are translating the Hungarian to English in this exercise.
- 730
You wrote: "Except in Hungarian it does..." That's not true. ...Nem felszólító funkciójú ez az igealak...kérdésben... pl. Megmondjam?... forrás (This verb form has no imperative function...in a question...e.g. Shall I say it? source) In Hungarian language an imperative sentence always gets an exclamation mark and not a question mark. :)
Ok then, please translate it: "Lányok, üljünk az asztalnál?" (And again: I wrote "translation of the English sentence" - It means translation from English to Hungarian, not from Hungarian to English. And again: There is no 'there' in the English sentence. The Hungarian sentence clearly points out: to sit there, not here. It's "odaülünk" not "ideülünk".
And no, the English sentence is not necessarily about movement: Shall we sit at the table? - We already sit at the table and I just want to suggest we may have other options than sitting at the table.)
So I just pointed out:
- Your statement "Here "shall" is just being used for the future..." is not correct. (It's being used to form a suggestion.)
- In the reverse translation we don't get back the Hungarian sentence of this exercise.
I know it is difficult to translate Hungarian sentences precisely to English or vice versa (sometimes it's impossible). In this case, English doesn't have one word for "odaülni" because it means "to get there and sit (down)".
This verb form has no imperative function...in a question...e.g. Shall I say it?
But it does use the imperative conjugation - even if the function is different.
Here "shall" is just being used for the future - and the present is used to express this.
"kell" is "must".
Girls, are we going to sit at the table? Not accepted, reported. I'm also highly critical this time because of the lack of consistency. Remember the old woman and odaül az ablak mellé és olvas? How did Duo translate that? She GOES and sits next to the window and reads. So, I work on the basis that this is the formula, use it here and of course it's not accepted! Duo needs to do a lot of work with these and there really is a price to be paid for teaching such sentences.
This English is incorrect (people do not sit "to" tables), and it's not clear what the "there" means. Does this sentence maybe mean "Girls, do we sit at that spot at the table?" Or what?
- 1412
Maybe it becomes a bit clearer with a little rearrangement of the words: "Girls, do [shall] we sit down at the table over there?"
- 1412
It would almost be good, but the speaker says odaülünk, so she includes herself: "Girls, could we...?"
- 1412
"Sit" doesn't go well with "to" in English. If you "ül az asztalhoz" in Hungarian, you usually "sit down at the table" in English.
And not "next to" this time as in the sentence with "az iskolához"...
- 1412
That would be a quirky sentence in English, because how can "we" be sitting "there"? "There" is, by definition, a place where the speaker currently isn't.
The Hungarian sentence would usually be interpreted as a suggestion, which you would translate with "Shall we...?" in English.
how can "we" be sitting "there"? "There" is, by definition, a place where the speaker currently isn't.
We are standing just inside the door, confused, and I say "do we sit over there?". Acceptable.
- 1143
Judit is right, except the verb is not in the imperative mood, but in the subjunctive mood, which has the same conjugation as the imperative. Americans, for example, would say, "Girls, should we sit at the table?".
- 730
Yes, that's right, but that wasn't a question. As I wrote: "The imperative mood forms a command or request but never forms a question." But Judit claims that's not true in the Hungarian language. I think it is true in all the languages. Although they use the same conjugation they are two different moods. The reason why they have the same conjugation is obvious:
Menjünk? (Shall we go?) - Menjünk! (Let's go.)
So... is Judit right?
- 1143
You force me to confess I’m doing Duolingo to retard the advance of dementia. Unfortunately, your disagreement with Judit is too long and intricate for me to keep it all in mind. When I first read through it the other day, I felt that the two of you were devoting a lot of time debating the use of the imperative when the real issue was the subjunctive. I still can’t grasp the entire argument, but there is no doubt you are right. I had merely wanted to stand up for Judit at one point because I’ve been critical of her in the past and I wanted to atone for having once been a heavy-handed twit. At this point I’ll bow out and wish both of you the best.