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- "Some women are taller than m…
"Some women are taller than men."
Translation:Unele femei sunt mai înalte ca bărbații.
29 Comments
no, if you Google it, you'll find that only decât is correct for inegality, but apparently Romanians use ca anyway. (Same is true in German, where it is supposed to be "größer als", but regionally people say "größer wie" anyway). And you'll even find English speakers who falsely say "taller as" - so this logical problem seems to be quite universal...
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I was asking the same in another example because this hasn't been mentioned anywhere yet.
In deneral: "ca" = "as"; "decât" = than. Thus, "la fel de înalte ca bărbații" ("as tall as the men"); "mai înalte înalte decât bărbații" ("taller than the men"). However, in Romanian, you can say both "taller than the men" and "taller as the men" and they are both valid and mean the exact same thing. Thus, "mai înalte înalte decât bărbații" = "mai înalte înalte ca bărbații" = "taller than the men", there is no difference; although some purists insist that "ca" should not be used so broadly, my understanding is that the majority of Romanians ignore this prohibition and consider the usage standard. (But notice that even in Romanian, you can never say "as tall than": "la fel de înalte decât bărbații" is impossible.)
PhilipNikolayev - I am curious as to why you repeat the word for "tall" two times together in a couple of your examples. Thank you!
Why two i's on bărbații? If so, where is the "the"? For the women is doesn't do this so it throws me for a loop. EDIT: It's really crushing me when I cycle back to it, I will have to remember it.
because of the article. ”bărbații”= the men (definite article) ”unele femei”=some women (plural of a/an - indefinite article)
I just love how you got downvoted so much I couldn't even bring you back to level, even though you only said something factually right. xD
But it says "taller than men" not "taller than THE man" for the translation. Surely you have to put the latter, because women are generally shorter than men, aren't they?????
but it's not "the man". It's "the men" literally and "men (in general)" considering the whole sentence
I have no idea why you guys couldn't accept the answer of Hatch-Slack. "Unele femei" is indeed "some women" and indefinite. Bărbații refers to "men in general". When talking about "Xs in general", you need a definite article in Romanian.
From my point of view, a better question would be why English does NOT use definite article when talking about a given definite set of instances or a given definite concept like "life" or "love".
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Because that's what the indefinite form without the article is used for in English. There's a difference between "Men" in general and "the men" specifically. Romanian does it one way, English does it the other. Neither is wrong in their own language, but its one of those things you just have to remember is different - like why "pe" (i.e. "on") uses the indefinite and not the definite ("pe masă" instead of "pe masa", whereas in English we say "on the table" not "on table"). The indefinite without the article means "this type of thing generally" and the definite form means "This specific group of this thing".
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No, bărbați already is plural. Bărbații on the other hand is "the men", plural with the definite article. I was wondering the same, why you have to use the definite article or is the translations just not quite correct in the sentence above?
I really don't understand why you need to use the definite plural of bărbat here. This would translate to English as 'some women are taller than THE men' which you wouldn't say logically. Can someone please explain why it's not bărbați instead?
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This seems the same as the use of the definite article in other Romance languages to indicate "all, in general". In French you would say "Certaines femmes sont plus intelligentes que LES hommes".
I don't know, just started wondering for my native language Hungarian, in case it helps at all... because in Hungarian, both with an article and without an article would be just plausible and just meh. xD
Is "men" here more "some men (if we choose well)" or more "men in general, average men"? If I assume it's the second, using an article actually makes sense because talking about a concept in general requires an article in Romanian (just like in Hungarian).
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Yeah, I think it's just confusing for native English speakers as in English the indefinite without an article is for "this thing in general" whereas the definite is used mainly to say "this specific group of this thing". It's a nuisance to try and remember - like using the indefinite with prepositions like "pe", "cu", "sub" etc. In English, we use the definite form instead and I often forget that.
decat looks similar to Spanish " de que " at least in the countries I live, in popular speech.
I thought ca = as and decât = than... If so, why is the following not correct for "Some women are taller than men?" ... Alte femei sunt mai înalte decât bărbații.
Good question.
I am not a linguist, but this is how I see it.
”unii/unele”=”some” and it is the plural form of the indefinite pronoun ”unul/una”.
”un/o”=”an/a” (the indefinite article singular form) ”niște”=”some”, it is the plural for the indefinite article ”a/an”.
”Un, o, una, unul” in English all mean ”one”.
Some examples =niște exemple:
I see some people over there. = Văd niște oameni acolo. Some fruits are poisonous. = Unele fructe sunt otrăvitoare. I need some money. = Am nevoie de niște bani. He saw some girls. = A văzut niște fete. Some girls had blue eyes. = Unele fete aveau ochi albaștri. Some animals can fly. = Unele animale pot zbura. There are some animals in his garden. = Sunt niște animale în grădina lui. Do you have some alcohol?= Ai niște alcool? Some alcohols are just for technical use. = Unii alcooli sunt doar pentru uz tehnic.
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I am wondering why in some sentences "de" is used after "la fel" and in others - not? Unii sunt la fel de destepti ca noi. And Unele femei sunt la fel inalte ca barbati. Can someone explaine?
WHY is it ca in this sentence and not decat?? it will not accept it even though I know it is right
