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- "Dzisiaj wieczorem pijemy sok…
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We don't have a direct equivalent of 'tonight', plus the meaning of the word is not that specific itself, as it might mean the evening or the night.
So it's either "today in the evening" (Dzisiaj wieczorem) or "today at night" (Dzisiaj w nocy).
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I struggled with this one, even though I knew exactly what it meant. There was a strong temptation to use some form of the demonstrative "ten", but I new I had to do something with "Dziesiaj", so I went with "today in the evening", even though that's not it's not what we say. Of course, it was marked wrong.
I then checked the dictionary to see if there is another way to say "this evening" using a demonstrative form, but for "this evening" and " this morning", Pons offers and found "dzisiaj wieczorem" and "dzisiaj rano" as the only choices.
So it is idiomatic, and we just have to accept "this is how we say it in polish".
I certainly won't forget this expression now.
This evening we drink juice. was my answer but it was rejected and the accepted answer was This evening we're drinking juice. In English it is acceptable, as I could say "This evening we drink juice, because I begin my diet." There is more of a future sense to this construction, because "This evening we are drinking juice.", could be said in the moment. It is evening and we are drinking juice right now." Could the Polish form not mean something similar?
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Agreed, please add the present simple back... it's how I would naturally speak English here in England.
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Okay good, so I'm not the only one to notice this. And the same problem occurs in some other sentences too.
"Today in the evening we drink juice" is not accepted, whereas "Today evening we drink juice." is.
As I was told, neither "today in the evening" or the now-accepted "today evening" are natural and really used in English.
It's less a discussion of 'natural' as opposed to 'correct'. "Today in the evening" is grammatically correct, albeit not really used, whereas "Today evening" is not.
"Today evening?" Where?! "This evening" is used. And is also accepted in the pc version here.
That was "now-accepted" as in "still accepted" ;) It was among the accepted answers and it shouldn't have been.
What's the difference in usage between dziś and dzisiaj? Vocabularies allow for dziś wieczor(em), is it used in Polish now?
Both seem perfectly interchangeable and similarly common to me. Well, according to Google, "dziś" is more common, but "dzisiaj" is also an everyday word.
This exercise reminds me of the old Polish Christmas carol: "Dzisiaj wieczorem, dzisiaj wieczorem, wesoła nowina......."
I have never heard of such a version, to me it's definitely "Dzisiaj w Betlejem, dzisiaj w Betlejem..." (Today in Bethlehem...)
Semantically speaking, the "drinking" is something that is happening in the future. However, both English and German use a grammatical present tense for that ("we are drinking"). Is that also the case for Polish?
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Yes, pijemy is a present tense. I believe you can use it for the future if you indicate a time.
"This evening, we drink juice." I think this should be allowed as it's common to say.
In many sentences, the "time" words are placed in the beginning and are translated into English by tagging a ablative phrase at the end. As in Noc pijemy sok = We are drinking juice at night. So why is it different with "dzisiaj wieczorem?" Why is the above sentence incorrect by stating we are drinking juice tonight. Isn't that the same meaning as Tonight we are drinking juice?
It would be "Nocą" (Instrumental) or "W nocy" (in the night, Locative).
Yeah, the meaning is the same. Maybe it's just an oversight, or maybe someone wanted to be very strict with grammar (technically it's "Pijemy sok dzisiaj wieczorem", so it answers the 'when' question and not 'what are we doing' question), but I think it can be accepted. Added.
So Today in the evening is not correct here? I am a beginner and don't see the difference -thank you for answers I read and its a bit more clear now.
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Why does the english translation say "tonight..."? Dzisiaj wieczorem should be "this evening", right?
Polish doesn't have any word for "tonight", and despite the 'night' part, "tonight" can mean either "today during the night" or "today during the evening".
For example "tonight at 7pm" is rather in the evening than at night ;)
"this evening" works, of course.
Thanks for thw explanation but why does it reject "this evening we drink juice"?
It should have been, such contractions are always accepted automatically.
It used to be two words in English, too. At some point it was spelled to-night and now just tonight.
Because it's Future Tense, and we have Present Tense (in the future meaning) in the Polish sentence.
I asked some native speakers and they say that it's not really correct to use "today's evening".
We are drinking juice today evening - not accepted :(
Instead it prompts with "We are drinking juice this evening."
That would be because today evening would never be used in English. Definitely not British English, and I can never remember hearing it used in American English either. You will say tomorrow morning / tomorrow evening, and yesterday morning / yesterday evening. However it will always be this morning and this evening for the the present day.
Today I wrote a power point in English and there were 18 different localizations of English that I could use as a proof reading language! I now think Duo should stick with the most literal translation from Polish to English as long as it's grammatically correct.
