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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...
454
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.)
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".
718
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".
710
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?
521
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).
718
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.
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.
480
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?