# If I had, I wish I had



## drei_lengua

Cześć,

Jak się mówi “If I had a million dollars I would change the world.” i "I wish I had a million dollars." po polsku? Dziękuję z góry.

Drei


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## Jana337

OK, let me try. 
Gdybym/jak bym miał milion dolarow, zmieniał bym świat.
If I would have a million dollars, I would change the world.

miał, zmieniał - past

The second one: I don't know! All I can do is to get around it by a similar sentence:
Żałuję, że nie ma milion dolarow. 



Jana


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## Thomas1

Jana337 said:


> OK, let me try.
> Gdybym/jak bym miał milion dolarow, zmieniał bym świat.
> If I would have a million dollars, I would change the world.
> miał, zmieniał - past


Gdybym/jak bym miał milion dolarów, to *zmieniłbym* świat. 
_To_ is a conjunction introducing a clause that is a consequence of the earlier given information (it is sometimes facultative but this sentece sounds better to me with it).
 Note that although the word _zmieniałbym_ is grammatically possible here we would use _zmieniłbym_ in most cases since _zieniałbym_ is an iterative verb (czasownik wielokrotny) and would translate rather as _would be changing _and _zmieniłbym_ is a momentary verb (czasownik jednokrotny) that would be rendered as_ would change._



Jana337 said:


> The second one: I don't know! All I can do is to get around it by a similar sentence:
> Żałuję, że nie mam miliona dolarów.
> _Ma _is the form of 3rd person singular. In the negative the verb _mieć_ requires the genitive case. Literary, your version Jana would translate into English as:
> _I regret that I don't have a million dollars._
> It is worth mentioning that the ending _ów_ always has o with kreska i.e. *ó *(well, I cna't think of an example with _uw_ ).
> 
> 
> Jana


"I wish I had a million dollars." 
_Chciałbym mieć million dolarów._


Tom


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## Seana

Jana337 said:
			
		

> Gdybym/jak bym miał milion dolarow, zmieniał bym świat.
> If I would have a million dollars, I would change the world.
> 
> miał, zmieniał - past
> 
> The second one: I don't know! All I can do is to get around it by a similar sentence:
> Żałuję, że nie ma milion dolarow.


 

Jana your sentences are not that bad and actually they are understandable.
I hope you don't mind a few corrections.

(...)
Gdybym/jakbym miał milion dolarow, zmieniłbym świat.
(...) Żałuję, że nie mam miliona dolarów.


So there are my suggestions:

*Gdybym miał milion dolarów, zmieniłbym świat.*

*Szkoda, że nie mam miliona dolarów.*

*Edit:* Sorry Thomas by a curious coincidence I sent my post in tha same time.
I wont delate it because it is different a bit ( better say a lot ).


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## Jana337

Thanks. 

What is miałem (that is, I am confused about grammar), please?

Jana


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## Seana

Jana337 said:


> Thanks.
> 
> What is miałem (that is, I am confused about grammar), please?
> Jana


 
Miałem = I had 

When we talk about past time 

I wish I had had...
*Szkoda, że nie miałem miliona dolarów*... or when we talk about present time

I wish I had ....in Polish means

*Szkoda, że nie mam miliona dodarów*...or the same meaning

*Chciałbym mieć milion dolarów*.


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## Thomas1

Jana337 said:


> OK, let me try.
> Gdybym/jak bym miał milion dolarow, zmieniał bym świat.
> If I would have a million dollars, I would change the world.
> 
> miał, zmieniał - past
> [...]


 


Jana337 said:


> Thanks.
> 
> What is miałem (that is, I am confused about grammar), please?
> 
> Jana


I forgot to add something and you have brought it up.

The form _miał _is the past, but only for the third person singular of masculine gender.
If you want to from the conditional then the form _miał_ is the same for the whole singular number of masculine gender, i.e.:
gdybym (ja) miał
gdybyś (ty) miał
gdyby (on) miał
Since we are doing this I will also mention that _mieli _(third form plural of masculine gender) "behaves" the same:
gdybyśmy (my) mieli
gdybyście (wy) mieli
gdyby (oni) mieli
It is the particle _by_ that changes (masculine, feminine).
ja miałabym 
ty miałabyś
on miałaby
my mielibyśmy / miałybyśmy
wy mielibyście / miałybyście
oni mieliby / miałyby

As you can see the if clause has a little different order than the main clause since the particle _by_ is tacked to the introducing conjunction (gdy/jeśli/jak,etc.+by) whereas in the main clause it is the ending of the verb _Gdy*bym*_ _miał million dolarów, zmienił*bym* świat._

So the part of the above sentence in green is actually the equivalent of the English subjunctive:
_Gdy*bym*_ _miał million dolarów = If I had a million dollars_
whereas the part in purple is the equivalent of the English conditional:
_zmienił*bym* świat = I would change the world_ Does that shed at least some light on the issuse?
I know this is the topic for another thread, but isn't it the same in Czech? If you just could translate Drei's example into your tongue...


***

As for the verb_ mieć_ this is the preterit conjugation (masculine/ feminine):
ja miałem / miałam
ty miałeś / miałaś
on miał / ona miała
my mieliśmy / miałyśmy
wy mieliście / miałyście
oni mieli / one miały



Tom

PS: it is _jakbym_, as Seana wrote, I didn't spot this one.


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## Jana337

Good, so it's just the past tense. I was confused because Drei's example is in the hypothetical present, whereas miałem didn't sound like one.

In Czech:
Kdybych měl milión dolarů, změnil bych svět.

So we do not append "by" to verbs, although it can be a part of conjunctions (aby, kdyby). Gender- and person-dependant prepositions: Isn't it fun? 

But unlike Polish, we have a much more direct translation of the second required sentence:
Kéž bych měl milión dolarů!

If you can't understand "kéž", you could also say "kdybych tak měl milión dolarů!".

Jana


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## Thomas1

Jana337 said:


> Good, so it's just the past tense. I was confused because Drei's example is in the hypothetical present, whereas miałem didn't sound like one.
> 
> [...]


I suspect that you might have confused this with rules that apply in your language, Jana, perhaps you have the same forms of preterit _to be_ for each person in each number (depending on the gender OC) [correct me if I’m wrong]. The same applies to Russian preterit, our conjugation of the past is, say, more rich than yours.  Anyway, it is the third form that is used in the conditional. 

Ok I think we need a separate thread on the rest. 

Tom


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## jazyk

> The same applies to Russian preterit, our conjugation of the past is, say, more rich than yours.



I don't think so. I think they are pretty much the same, the difference being that Polish glues words together, Czech likes to keep them apart:

Czech:

Pracovat: pracoval(a) jsem, pracoval(a) jsi, pracoval(a), pracovali/y jsme, pracovali/y jste, pracovali/y.

Polish:

Pracować: pracowałe(a)m, pracowałe(a)ś, pracował(a), pracowaliśmy/pracowałyśmy, pracowaliście/pracowałyście, pracowali/pracowały.


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## Thomas1

jazyk said:


> I don't think so. I think they are pretty much the same, the difference being that Polish glues words together, Czech likes to keep them apart:
> 
> Czech:
> 
> Pracovat: pracoval(a) jsem, pracoval(a) jsi, pracoval(a), pracovali/y jsme, pracovali/y jste, pracovali/y.
> 
> Polish:
> 
> Pracować: pracowałe(a)m, pracowałe(a)ś, pracował(a), pracowaliśmy/pracowałyśmy, pracowaliście/pracowałyście, pracowali/pracowały.
> [/font][/color]


What I had in mind was that in Russian there's one form for each person in each number (they differentiate only genders, at least in the singular). 
я работал
ты работал 
он работал
я работалa 
ты работалa 
она работала
мы работали 
вы работали 
они работали

And as for Czech I rather guessed than knew, hence my comment in parenthesis, but from what I see they have pretty much the same situation as in Russian except for one thing they add an auxiliary verb.


> Pracovat: pracoval(a) jsem, pracoval(a) jsi, pracoval(a), pracovali/y jsme, pracovali/y jste, pracovali/y.


The verbs I marked in blue are added to form full preterite tense (no auxiliary for third persons), but the main verb is pretty much the same for each person in each number dependant only on gender. The paradigm for Polish preterite tense has a set of endings and no auxiliary--this, I think, makes it (seem?) more complex since you can take any past form to create conditional in Czech and this is not the case in Polish where only the third person form is the one used in conditinal constructions.

Tom


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## mcibor

One more suggestion. If these two sentences are together, then regarding the style better would be to write:

*Gdybym miał milion dolarów, zmieniłbym świat.*
*Szkoda, że tyle nie mam. *- It's a shame I don't have so much*
or
Chciałbym tyle mieć! *- I wish I had so much

Regaring the u/ó before w it's almost always ów, only
suw (stroke)
suwać, suwadło, suwak, suwenir, suweren, przesuwać, zasuwa, usuwać and all words based on suwać.

However there is also 
kogo/czego - tych sów - whose - these owls

Regards
Michal


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## wolfbm1

Tłumacząc zwrot _'I wish I had_' używamy zwrotów wyrażających żale lub pragnienia 'Szkoda/Żałuję, że nie mam,' 'Chciałbym mieć,' 'Gdybym tak miał.'

Zwrot _'I wish I had_' może być właściwie zastąpiony przez zwrot '_If only I had_.' A ten prowadzi do zdania '_If I had a million dollars I would change the world_ (Gdybym/Jeśli bym miał ...),' a więc do zdania warunkowego. W języku polskim używamy wtedy partykuły 'by' w odpowiedniej formie osobowej oraz przeszłej formy czasownika, również w odpowiedniej formie osobowej.

_I wish I had a million dollars._ Gdybym tak miał milion dolarów.


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## Martazo

Bardzo proszę o radę i pomoc. Czy zdanie: 'I would rather think about how it would have been if it hadn't existed at all then' można przetłumaczyć na: "wolałam myśleć o tym jak by to było gdyby to nie istniało"?


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## grassy

Wolałabym myśleć o tym, jak by to było, gdyby to w ogóle wtedy nie istniało.


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## tewlwolow

Martazo said:


> Bardzo proszę o radę i pomoc. Czy zdanie: 'I would rather think about how it would have been if it hadn't existed at all then' można przetłumaczyć na: "wolałam myśleć o tym jak by to było gdyby to nie istniało"?



Polish, unlike many Germanic languages, does not employ the simple past (preteritum) in a sense of a conditional/subjunctive.


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