Jak sie masz -> niezle, doskonale. Wyglada ladnie - grammar questions

in english if you ask someone HOW ARE YOU ? and they reply NOT BAD or EXCELLENT (adjectives) and both these answers are grammatically correct ....then how come in polish???

when you say JAK SIE MASZ ? then you have to answer NIEZLE or DOSKONALE which are both in the adverb form???

also in the sentence ....ZOFIA WYGLADA LADNIE ....zofia looks nice ....in the english sentence 'nice' is an adjective yet in the polish sentene you must use the adverb 'ladnie' this is in the adverb form

very confused scot trying to learn polish

thanks in advance

These two are also adverbs. You're actually saying:

I am NOT BAD
I am EXCELLENT

When you use them in conjuntion with a verb, they are adverbs.

Wrong. "Not bad" in adverbial form is "not badly", and "excellent" is "excellently". Unless you're a US American I guess, where the grammar is "real" bad. ;P

However, if plg wants an intuitive understanding of it, this is how I think of it:

"Jak sie masz" - "How are you keeping yourself?"
"doskonale" - "Excellently." OR "strasznie" - "horribly".

So "jak sie masz" doesn't really mean "how are you" literally, which is why you don't use adjectives. It's sort of like the question "how are you doing?" You don't reply "good", the adjective, you reply "well", the adverb.

ha kufasa ...dziekuje (sorry about my polish spelling)

ty jestes madra

but i have, i think, got to the bottom of my "problem"

They are adjectives I'd say.

oh wait someone says they are adjectives

i'll scratch my head a bit longer

I was replying to Mufasa. In English, they are adjectives as u know but Sajmon's post is good

Adverbs are used to modify a verb, an adjective, or another adverb:
[1] Mary sings beautifully
[2] David is extremely clever
[3] This car goes incredibly fast
In [1], the adverb beautifully tells us how Mary sings. In [2], extremely tells us the degree to which David is clever. Finally, in [3], the adverb incredibly tells us how fast the car goes.

Before discussing the meaning of adverbs, however, we will identify some of their formal characteristics.

Google adverbs to make sure what they are.

David is clever
I am clever

David is not bad / excellent
I am not bad / excellent :)

On the other hand, in the following sentences:
He is a clever boy
She has a beautifulvoice
This is a fast car

these same words are adjectives :)

You almost sound right on the surface, but let's see if I can explain why you're not.

First off, your example sentences [1]-[3] are all correct instances of adverbs. But notice, unlike "bad" and "excellent" they all end with "ly", a common modifier used to make an adjective into an adverb.

Now, "David is clever". Clever is an adjective. If it were an adverb it would appear is "David is cleverly" which doesn't make sense. You assume that the word "clever" modifies the verb "to be", which it does not. It in fact modifies the noun "David". Word order might confuse this for you slightly, but I assure you it is the case. So "clever" is *always* an adjective.

The same goes for your other examples, too.

Edit: Oh, and if we're being grammar nazis:
"This car goes incredibly fast" should be "This car goes incredibly quickly". Fast is an adjective. You can't modify "to go" with it. :P

sorry sajmon - you're right :)

After all that I've even forgotten how to respond to 'Jak się masz'!
I might have to read it again real slow.
Sorry, I mean really slowly.

No problem. It was good procrastination from the work I'm supposed to be doing. ;)

plg - wait until you get to verbs like "wyglądać" - "to appear/to look". Instead of saying "she looks pretty" you say "she looks prettily". I still slip up on that one occasionally. I think these are differences you just have to learn by heart, unfortunately.

yea yea - nuff nuff - muf's still blushy ;)

or is it blushily ;P

lol

U can use ur ears to cover ur eyes Mufa, hehehe

i'll probably never hear the end of this will i.
you'll have a problem when you blush seanus - i hope you still do, if only czasami - you don't have long enough ears to cover your face ;P

Those ears are flexible, they stretch to my eyes, LOL

no matter how flexible - not long enough - lol

not quite had time to read all that but has someone answered the ..............

zofia looks nice..................nice is an adjective here...

zofia wyglada ladnie.......its definitely an adverb in the polish sentence

which makes no sense

if any one can solve this, it's ZDarius

Oops, obviously didn't read the original post correctly. You already mentioned wyglądać. My turn to blush!


You're absolutely correct, and this is a difference you just have to learn. Because in English, the word "nice" modifies Zofia, and in Polish the word "ładnie" modifies "wygląda". It's confusing, but in the end a simple memorisation problem, because they both have essentially the same meaning, despite the different grammar. You just have to memorise whether it's convention to use an adjective or an adverb for a particular verb/phrase, because there's no additional insight to be had here. It's just convention.

As an analogue, there are often two ways to express the same idea in English, using adjectives and adverbs. "He is fantastic at bowling" and "he bowls fantastically". So it might help to to think of the verbs in Polish differently. Instead of "Zofia looks nice" think "Zofia presents herself nicely". Now, that's not a literal translation, but it shows how, given the right verb, an adverb can be used correctly.

If that makes any sense?

Adverbs can proceed or follow the verb.
Mieszkam bardzo blisko/jest blisko do hotelu.
ładna pogoda/dzisiaj jest ładnie
zimny dzień/jest zimno
młoda kobieta/wygląda młodo
trudny język/trudno mówić po polsku.
miłe miasto/jest miło tu.
długi czas/długo nie czekam.

ok how many times have you heard someone ask someone "HOW ARE YOU" and they reply GOOD THANKS.....which is not the adverb and no one corrects them if indeed is incorrect.......

but in the polish version "JAK SIE MASZ" no polish person would reply dobry they would ALWAYS use the adverb DOBRZE....

its strange how in english people dont really bother answering grammatically correctly

still very confused scot

=Sajmon] So "jak sie masz" doesn't really mean "how are you" literally, which is why you don't use adjectives. It's sort of like the question "how are you doing?" You don't reply "good", the adjective, you reply "well", the adverb. [/quote]

Actually, my gf replies "My name a Borat. I from Kazakhstan". Apparently nobody from her part of Poland ever says "jak się masz" unless they're being silly. ;)

Anyway, the reason you're confused is because you believe that two different languages, with completely diffferent grammars, should follow the same rules. Whether to use an adjective or an adverb for replies to "how are you?" is entirely a matter of convention, because (I think that) either is correct. You can say "excellent" and be qualifying a noun ("I am excellent") or "excellently" and be qualifying the verb ("I am excellently"). The reason that the latter of these sounds stupid and wrong would, I believe, simply be a matter of common usage. If you heard it on the street every day, it wouldn't sound so wrong.

Stop trying to transliterate Polish into English - it just doesn't work. "Jak się masz?" - "How yourself (you) are having?"

im afraid this gets more and more confusing....what you typed is confusing>>adverbs proceed or follow the verb....ladna pogoda/ dzisiaj jest ladnie......where is the verb in those sentences??????

and ladna pogoda....ladna is an adjective...pogoda a noun....

"I am good/not bad/etc. " has the same sentence structure as "she is beautiful" (pronoun, verb "to be" and adjective). I might be wrong, but it seems like the verb "to be" always requires an adjective and cannot be followed by an adverb. The function of an adverb in English is to describe an action while adjectives refer to a certain state. The same goes for the verbs "to look", "to smell", "to taste" when they do not talk about actions (the flowers smell wonderful, the cake tasted really good, she looks beautiful), they are all followed by adjectives.)

Polish is more complicated, but we seem to use adjectives after "byc" (jestem zadowolona, jestes szczesliwy, dom jest pusty). The rest of the verbs seem to require advebs (kwiaty pachna ladnie, dziewczynka wyglada pieknie, samochod jedzie szybko, etc.) "Jak sie masz?" has the verb "miec" and not "byc", therefore it is followed by an adverb "mam sie dobrze", but we drop the verb in the reply. Those are just my observations, we would have to talk to a linguist to get the right answer. Have fun learning Polish!

What would be the answer to the question in English 'how are you?' I am feeling goodly thank you! Come off it, the English know how to speak correctly.

where is darius? he's a linguist. why isn't he around lately?

It has already been explained above. Genoeg, hoor!

you quoted me incorrectly, i asked where not here. and if you read correctly, your previous post have been moved to the random chat bin, that's why this post is the last one, not because i posted it again.

genoeg hoor!

First of all - in Polish "jak" serves to ask for an adverb, "jaki/jaka/jakie" - for an adjective, so I see no problem in the logic of the answer (with the use of an adverb). As mentioned by others, you can't literally translate most things (although it's done often for educational purposes), because if you intend to become fluent in a foreing language, you have to

1/ accept, then
2/ try to understand and finally
3/ to reproduce (imitate)
its logic (sounds almost like marriage plans).
Of course, when you're not serious about it, you can skip all of this and try to carbon copy as much from your native language(s) or from a foreign language you know relatively well, but such relationship won't be succesful.


well, apparently you can :)


OK, I may be completely out of my league (English has always been a hobby for me, never studied it seriously with all this grammar), but I'm with Mufasa (or her first intuitive response, because later she was lured by Sajmon to believe differently)

I think the root of the problem is that the English language is messed up a little (because of its evolution) in terms of grammar.

One word can be different parts of speech depending on it's position - the most common is a 2 nouns combination where the first noun becomes adjective without changing its grammatical form

1/ He threw a stone. (stone = a noun)
2/ He hit against a stone wall. (for me an adjective, but you may argue that it's still a noun, since the wall is made of stones, but then shouldn't it be "stones wall"?)

3/ The pavement has a stone look. (looks like stone, but can be made of plastic or other materials).

Why isn't a "real" adjective used in any of those sentences? Because the English grammar, thanks to its structure, doesn't have such need. You can have a similar construction in German, but you usually make one word of the two nouns (Stein = stone, Mauer = wall, so stone wall = Steinmauer).