# All Slavic Languages: If you want to know (more) about me, ask me.



## mateo19

Hello everyone!

I would like to compare how to say the above phrase across the Slavic languages.

My attempt and contribution is the Slovak.  Please, as always, feel free to correct me!  Thank you.

Slovak: Ak chcete vedieť (viac) o mne, spytajte mi!


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## Panda Nocta

(Rus) Если хочешь [у]знать обо мне (больше) - спроси (меня).
(Blr) Калi жадаеш ведаць (больш/болей?) пра мяне - спытай. (just a wild guess, as I don't speak it much nowadays)
Unless a context implies that someone else could reply, a translation of "me" looks redundant in similar clauses to me.


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## trance0

Slovene:

Če želiš/hočeš vedeti več o meni, me (kar) vprašaj.


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## TriglavNationalPark

trance0 said:


> Slovene:
> 
> Če želiš/hočeš vedeti več o meni, me (kar) vprašaj.


 
BTW, if you need to use the formal ("vi") form, as in the original example, here's how to say it:

"Če želite/hočete vedeti več o meni, me (kar) vprašajte."


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## Thomas1

Polish:
_Zapytaj jeśli chcesz wiedzieć o mnie więcej._
I have rearanged the information order (ask-->if you want to know...) since it sounds better to me this way. Note that więce (more) is obligatory in the Polish sentence.

Tom


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## slavic_one

mateo19 said:


> Hello everyone!
> 
> I would like to compare how to say the above phrase across the Slavic languages.
> 
> My attempt and contribution is the Slovak.  Please, as always, feel free to correct me!  Thank you.
> 
> Slovak: Ak chcete vedieť (viac) o mne, spytajte mi!



My attempt in Slovak would be:
Či chcete vedieť viac o mne, opytajte sa!

Without "viac" just doesn't sound good to me, maybe then "Či chcete vedieť niečo o mne, opytajte sa!"

Croatian: Ako želite (sa)znati više o meni, pitajte me!
or same as I said for Slovak:
Ako želite znati nešto o meni, pitajte me! (If you want to know something about me, ask me)

you can write "slobodno me pitajte" - feel free to ask me.


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## TriglavNationalPark

slavic_one said:


> My attempt in Slovak would be:
> *Či* chcete vedieť viac o mne, opytajte sa!


 
The Slovak "či" reminds me of the Slovenian "če" (see posts #3 and #4); both are very different from what the other languages mentioned here use. Interesting!

I'll check what my etymological dictionary has to say about the origin of this word in a few days (I don't have it with me at the moment).


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## mateo19

Ah, but in Slovak we cannot use "či" in this case.  We have to use "ak".  They both mean "if" but they don't have the same meaning.

*Či* means if in the sense of "whether".  Neviem, či dnes je dobrý deň.
*Ak* means if in the sense of "in the case that".  Ak chceš, môžeme teraz ísť do kina.

I know that this doesn't look like a good case compared to the other Slavic languages, but surely a Slovak will come around and explain it.

Slavic One, what is the difference between "opytaj" and "spytaj"?  They look like they are both perfective variants of "pýtať".  My sad dictionary does not differentiate them.  Thanks!


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## TriglavNationalPark

mateo19 said:


> Ah, but in Slovak we cannot use "či" in this case. We have to use "ak". They both mean "if" but they don't have the same meaning.
> 
> *Či* means if in the sense of "whether". Neviem, či dnes je dobrý deň.
> *Ak* means if in the sense of "in the case that". Ak chceš, môžeme teraz ísť do kina.


 
I see. Slovenian uses "če" in both cases:

"Ne vem, če je danes dober dan."
"Če želiš/hočeš, greva/gremo lahko zdaj v kino."


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## trance0

Yes, but Slovene also has the "ako" conjunction, which sounds old-fashioned nowdays and is not used in spoken or written language(except for stylistic purposes).


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## WannaBeMe

Oh very piquant, I´m loving such themes about etymology of words. 
I got the solution:
Both of them, AKO and ČE or AK and ČI have the same root. 
Churchslavonic AČE but Protoslavic possibly AKO.
K was palatalized becouse of E in the first case and in the second it has stayed K becouse of O at the end.
Analog Serbokroatian KROZ-ČREZ Slovenian or Slovak or( CVET-KVET )


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## TriglavNationalPark

WannaBeMe said:


> Oh very piquant, I´m loving such themes about etymology of words.
> I got the solution:
> Both of them, AKO and ČE or AK and ČI have the same root.
> Churchslavonic AČE but Protoslavic possibly AKO.
> K was palatalized becouse of E in the first case and in the second it has stayed K becouse of O at the end.
> Analog Serbokroatian KROZ-ČREZ Slovenian or Slovak or( CVET-KVET )


 
Wow, _hvala_ for this fascinating explanation! I'm not a linguist (obviously), but I also love these etymological topics. They're a bit like detective work!


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## cyanista

Panda Nocta said:


> (Blr) Калi жадаеш ведаць больш/болей пра мяне, дык (с)пытайся.



it's not that "спытай" is wrong but to me it sounds somehow incomplete without the "-ся".

POLITE: Калi жадаеце ведаць больш/болей пра мяне, дык (с)пытайцеся.


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## mateo19

Most excellent answers! Now we'll just have to wait for our Ukrainian friends to come around.  Ah, there is also no Czech language response.

I too am very interested in the etymologies. This is very interesting about ak and či. Slavic languages are so flavorful. That's why I converted!


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## winpoj

There are several ways of saying this in Czech. For example:
Chcete-li o mně vědět víc, ptejte se.
Jestliže o mně chcete vědět víc, zeptejte se.
Pokud se o mně chcete dozvědět více, zeptejte se.

By the way, Czech also has words like "ak" (jak) and "či" (či) but their meaning is different. Jak means how and či means or. We have "zda" or "jestli" for "whether".


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## njumi

Thomas1 said:


> Polish:
> _Zapytaj jeśli chcesz wiedzieć o mnie więcej._
> I have rearanged the information order (ask-->if you want to know...) since it sounds better to me this way. Note that więcej (more) is obligatory in the Polish sentence.Tom



I can agree that _wiedzieć o mnie _in these kind of sentences can't be alone... but there is no obligation to use _więcej._

Here you have some other possibilities:

_Zapytaj jeśli coś chcesz __ o mnie __wiedzieć. _(if you want to know something about me)
_Zapytaj jeśli jeszcze coś chcesz __ o mnie __wiedzieć. _(_jeszcze coś = _synonym of _więcej - _more or less: if you want to know still more about me)_
Zapytaj jeśli chcesz __ o mnie __wiedzieć to czego teraz nie wiesz. _(if you want to know what you don't know)


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## Kanes

*If you want to know about me, ask me.*
Ако искъш да знаеш за мен, питай ме.

Others will only be changing the word order so no point in writing them, also the last me is implied. Oh and its Bulgarian.


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## Natabka

Hello to Mateo and other foreros!

Here's my variant of Ukrainian translation:

If you want to know (more) about me, ask me.
Якщо хочете дізнатися про мене (більше), питайте.

P.S. wow, this is my 100-th post


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## Mišo

mateo19 said:


> Ah, but in Slovak we cannot use "či" in this case.  We have to use "ak".  They both mean "if" but they don't have the same meaning.
> 
> *Či* means if in the sense of "whether".  Neviem, či dnes je dobrý deň.
> *Ak* means if in the sense of "in the case that".  Ak chceš, môžeme teraz ísť do kina.
> 
> I know that this doesn't look like a good case compared to the other Slavic languages, but surely a Slovak will come around and explain it.
> 
> Slavic One, what is the difference between "opytaj" and "spytaj"?  They look like they are both perfective variants of "pýtať".  My sad dictionary does not differentiate them.  Thanks!



Here are some variants:

Ak/Keď chcete o mne vedieť (viac), spýtajte sa ma.
Pokiaľ sa chcete o mne dozvedieť viacej, opýtajte sa ma.
Jak chcete o mne vedieť vyše, spýtajte sa ma. (substandard form used in my region)

So, *s*pýtať sa and *o*pýtať is dimorphous verb or verbs with the same meaning, as *u*mrieť and *zo*mrieť for example.


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## TriglavNationalPark

Can someone translate this into Macedonian? I'm curious because I believe that the Macedonian word for "ask" is very similar to the Slovenian one and different from all other languages translated so far.


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## Thomas1

njumi said:


> I can agree that _wiedzieć o mnie _in these kind of sentences can't be alone... but there is no obligation to use _więcej._


You changed the original sentence so więcej can be omitted. If you want to keep as close to the original as possible then I would say it is oligatory (and isn't in English like it seems from the title of this thread).



> Here you have some other possibilities:
> _Zapytaj jeśli coś chcesz __ o mnie __wiedzieć. _(if you want to know something about me)
> _Zapytaj jeśli jeszcze coś chcesz __ o mnie __wiedzieć. _(_jeszcze coś = _synonym of _więcej - _more or less: if you want to know still more about me)_
> Zapytaj jeśli chcesz __ o mnie __wiedzieć to czego teraz nie wiesz. _(if you want to know what you don't know)


Your last two sentences don't sound stylistically good to my ears, the last one in particular.

Tom

EDIT: actually the order in your first sentence isn't something I would go for. If I were to use it in the context given, I would reorder it:
_Zapytaj jeśli chcesz coś o mnie wiedzieć._


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## WannaBeMe

TriglavNationalPark said:


> Can someone translate this into Macedonian? I'm curious because I believe that the Macedonian word for "ask" is very similar to the Slovenian one and different from all other languages translated so far.



This would be it in Macedonian. Now you can see if it´s similar to Slovenian 
Ако сакаш да знаш повеќе за мене, прашувај. 
Ако сакате да знате повеќе за мене, прашувајте.


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## TriglavNationalPark

WannaBeMe said:


> This would be it in Macedonian. Now you can see if it´s similar to Slovenian
> Ако сакаш да знаш повеќе за мене, *прашувај*.
> Ако сакате да знате повеќе за мене, *прашувајте*.



Thanks!

Yes, *прашувај/прашувајте (prašuvaj/prašuvajte)* in Macedonian is very similar to *vprašaj/vprašajte* in Slovenian and very different from the other languages listed here, which have *pitat-* as the root (*pitajte, ptejte, pytajte*, etc.).

I now have Marko Snoj's_ Slovenski etimološki slovar_ (Slovenian Etymological Dictionary) in front of me. The word *vprašati *comes from the proto-Slavic *pras'ati*, which is a form of *prositi* ("to ask for something"). Apparently, similar forms survive in other Slavic languages, including Russian and Polish.

Another interesting thing I noticed in this thread is the well known divide (isogloss) between languages that use* vedet-* and languages that use* znat-* in the sense of "to know (something or someone)". Slovenian lies right on this divide, so some dialects use *znati *(like other modern South Slavic languages), while others use *vedeti *(like the West Slavic languages, for instance). Standard Slovenian uses *vedeti*, the only modern South Slavic language with this feature as far as I know (*znati* in standard Slovenian means "to know how to"/"to be able to"/"to have a command of").

Maybe a linguist can tell us more about this (and/or correct anything I said)!


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## slavic_one

mateo19 said:


> Ah, but in Slovak we cannot use "či" in this case.  We have to use "ak".  They both mean "if" but they don't have the same meaning.
> 
> *Či* means if in the sense of "whether".  Neviem, či dnes je dobrý deň.
> *Ak* means if in the sense of "in the case that".  Ak chceš, môžeme teraz ísť do kina.
> 
> I know that this doesn't look like a good case compared to the other Slavic languages, but surely a Slovak will come around and explain it.
> 
> Slavic One, what is the difference between "opytaj" and "spytaj"?  They look like they are both perfective variants of "pýtať".  My sad dictionary does not differentiate them.  Thanks!



I'm a bit late, haven't been around for a few days. Well, my mistake, and my apology!
"Ak" would be Croatian "ako", and "či" Croatian "da li". Thank you for pointing that out, never thought about that before  but still, you can say "Či cheš niečo vedieť? Opytaj sa!" right?
(as for opytať/spytať, answer is already given by Mišo)



Mišo said:


> Jak chcete o mne vedieť vyše, spýtajte sa ma. (substandard form used in my region)



Ahoj Mišo! Skadial si? Toto "vyše" je ako u nás ("više"), a ešte som to nečul v slovenčine 



WannaBeMe said:


> Oh very piquant, I´m loving such themes about etymology of words.
> I got the solution:
> Both of them, AKO and ČE or AK and ČI have the same root.
> Churchslavonic AČE but Protoslavic possibly AKO.
> K was palatalized becouse of E in the first case and in the second it has stayed K becouse of O at the end.
> Analog Serbokroatian KROZ-ČREZ Slovenian or Slovak or( CVET-KVET )



Slovački je "cez", ne "črez"  i ima jedna bitna razlika među slovačkim i slovenskim riječima koje se isto pišu (kvet, svet itd.) - što slovaci "e" čitaju mekano pa zvuči kao npr. češki (květ, svět ... ) a slovenci kao u naše ekavice, recimo tvrdo.


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## TriglavNationalPark

slavic_one said:


> Slovački je "cez", ne "črez"



"Črez" is also archaic in Slovenian; "čez" is used instead.



slavic_one said:


> i ima jedna bitna razlika među slovačkim i slovenskim riječima koje se isto pišu (kvet, svet itd.) - što slovaci "e" čitaju mekano pa zvuči kao npr. češki (květ, svět ... ) a slovenci kao u naše ekavice, recimo tvrdo.



I'm not sure about Czech, but "cvet", "svet", "mleko", etc. are pronounced very differently in Slovenian from how a BCS Ekavian speaker would pronounce them. The Slovenian "e" in these words is what is known as an "*ozki e*" (marked as* é *in pronunciation guides) in Slovenian. It was formed when the "ie" diphthong was shortened into a single sound: ml*é*ko < mlieko. The pronunciation is therefore completely different from the Serbian "ml*e*ko", for example. Despite having the same spelling as the Slovenian "mleko", the Serbian "mleko" is pronounced with the same kind of "e" as in the English word "get" and doesn't involve any collapsed diphthongs.


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## slavic_one

slavic_one said:


> što slovaci "e" čitaju mekano pa zvuči kao npr. češki (květ, svět ... )



Ispričavam se, poslije sam se sjetio ali nisam više imao priliku doći za računalo, svet i kvet slovaci čitaju normalno (ne kao češki svět, květ), to je bio loš primjer, ali npr. u riječi idem ili prefiksu ne- čitaju kao mekano ! 



TriglavNationalPark said:


> I'm not sure about Czech, but "cvet", "svet", "mleko", etc. are pronounced very differently in Slovenian from how a BCS Ekavian speaker would pronounce them. The Slovenian "e" in these words is what is known as an "*ozki e*" (marked as* é *in pronunciation guides) in Slovenian. It was formed when the "ie" diphthong was shortened into a single sound: ml*é*ko < mlieko. The pronunciation is therefore completely different from the Serbian "ml*e*ko", for example. Despite having the same spelling as the Slovenian "mleko", the Serbian "mleko" is pronounced with the same kind of "e" as in the English word "get" and doesn't involve any collapsed diphthongs.



Interesting.. didn't know that. I'll try to pay attention next time when listening to some Slovene. Only thing I noticed is that Slovenian has softer "l" than we have.


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## echo chamber

WannaBeMe said:


> This would be it in Macedonian. Now you can see if it´s similar to Slovenian
> Ако сакаш да знаш *знаеш *(2nd p. singular) повеќе за мене, прашувај *прашај* *(ме)*.
> Ако сакате да знате *знаете* (2nd p. plural) повеќе за мене, прашувајте *прашајте (ме)*.



_Прашуваj_ is non-finite verb, _прашаj_ is finite. Eg., Јас _прашав_ => I asked. 
Јас _прашував_ => I was asking/have been asking.



WannaBeMe said:


> Now you can see if it´s similar to Slovenian



It does to me. ;-)


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## echo chamber

TriglavNationalPark said:


> Yes, *прашувај/прашувајте (prašuvaj/prašuvajte)* in Macedonian is very similar to *vprašaj/vprašajte* in Slovenian and very different from the other languages listed here, which have *pitat-* as the root (*pitajte, ptejte, pytajte*, etc.).
> 
> I now have Marko Snoj's_ Slovenski etimološki slovar_ (Slovenian Etymological Dictionary) in front of me. The word *vprašati *comes from the proto-Slavic *pras'ati*, which is a form of *prositi* ("to ask for something"). Apparently, similar forms survive in other Slavic languages, including Russian and Polish.



I also checked out the etymology of *prašuva*, and I got the same answer, a form from "prositi". 
Nowadays, in Macedonia the verb "prosi" refers to what a beggar does on the street, to beg for money.


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## TriglavNationalPark

echo chamber said:


> I also checked out the etymology of *prašuva*, and I got the same answer, a form from "prositi".
> Nowadays, in Macedonia the verb "prosi" refers to what a beggar does on the street, to beg for money.



That's interesting! In Slovenian, *prositi* means "to ask for something, to request", whereas the closely related verb *prosjačiti* means "to beg".


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## echo chamber

TriglavNationalPark said:


> That's interesting! In Slovenian, *prositi* means "to ask for something, to request", whereas the closely related verb *prosjačiti* means "to beg".



Yes, a funny thing it is indeed, since the Macedonian word for beggar is "prosjak".


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## magaa

Polish: Jeśli chcesz się dowiedzieć czegoś więcej o mnie, (poprostu) zapytaj/ spytaj/pytaj.


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## TriglavNationalPark

echo chamber said:


> Yes, a funny thing it is indeed, since the Macedonian word for beggar is "prosjak".



*Prosjak* was once also common in Slovenian, but it's rare nowadays. Instead, we use the word *berač*, which, according to Snoj, comes from the archaic verb *brati* (modern-day *zbirati*) in the sense of "to collect" (since beggars collect money).


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## Kanes

Barac on Bulgarian means someone who touches. Could be used for a pickpocketer. Beggar is prosiak.


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## chernobyl

Kanes said:


> Ако искъш иск*а*ш да знаеш за мен, питай ме.


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