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Please answer my 6yr old child's question
Message
From
16/06/2005 06:45:00
 
 
General information
Forum:
Visual FoxPro
Category:
Other
Miscellaneous
Thread ID:
01022435
Message ID:
01023854
Views:
14
>>>Is it like in French and German, though, where the endings of some persons are the same as for another? e.g. in German Sie Sind means both "You (plural) are" and "They are" - even the same pronoun!. What's the point!?
>>
>>"Sie" has three meanings:
>>1. She
>>2. They
>>3. You (both singular and plural, like english), but this a more formal form which is common in Germany because germans are "old fashioned". This form of Sie (note the capital S) corresponds to old english forms like thou and thee, I guess.
>
>Aye, I was aware of that: again, like the "polite" or "respectful" form of "Vous" in French. This only makes the whole point of different endings, and indeed, pronouns even more pointless, when you don't know (besides context) which of the 4 meanings it has. Imagine a poster saying "Sie sind hier". Is it telling you she's here and stay tuned to find out who she is, or the obvious that YOU rourself are here, etc?

Not quite. "She is" is "sie ist", all the other versions are "Sie sind". We have the same in norwegian, "de" means "they", and "De" means the formal "you", it is used for both singular and plural. Or should I saw "was used", now everyone uses "du" ("you"), except maybe to the King! <s>

But when you think of it, practically all languages have several cases with double meaning. I remember when I learnt english, many had problems with "you", sometimes it was singular, and sometimes it was plural. For the corresponding "self", was it "yourself" or was it "yourselves"? I also remember from my french class, "je suis le roi" can mean both "I am the king" and "I follow the king".
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