# Belarusian: Who are you waiting for?



## Setwale_Charm

Which is correct for "Who are you waiting for?" for example: Каго чакаеш? or На каго чакаешь? It is the preposition I am interested in.


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## cyanista

It's Каго чакаеш? No preposition.


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## Setwale_Charm

But as far I know, it is Яна чакала *на* мяне, not simply чакала мяне.


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## cyanista

Setwale_Charm said:


> But as far I know, it is Яна чакала *на* мяне, not simply чакала мяне.


Then I suppose you are learning a different Belarusian language. It's not sarcasm, I mean it. The same story as with "Дабры дзень" (which I might yet return to if I find out something more). The Belarusian I know is the standard version used in official documents, school textbooks and on the TV. Since the beginning of the nineties another version which is supposedly "closer to the roots" has been popular among those seeking the renaissance of Belarusian. I am afraid I am not fully up-to-date with this version as I've never made any conscious effort to learn it. I couldn't warm myself up for the idea. I still prefer рэклама to рэкляма, Англiя to Ангельшчына and so on and so forth.  Besides, this New Old Belarusian is still very inconsistent. 

Coming back to your original question - all I can say is that чакаць на кагосьцi looks and sounds totally wrong to me.


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## Setwale_Charm

Well, thank you. If you care, this is the book I am studying by
http://www.belreview.cz/downloads/book01-rev2.pdf


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## jazyk

I know no Belarussian, but let me point out to something that really went against my expectations:



> It's Каго чакаеш? No preposition.



Polish, Czech and Macedonian, and God knows what else, have very similar verbs that require the same preposition na.


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## Setwale_Charm

jazyk said:


> I know no Belarussian, but let me point out to something that really went against my expectations:
> 
> 
> 
> Polish, Czech and Macedonian, and God knows what else, have very similar verbs that require the same preposition na.


 

Well, this is obvious, isn't it? Belarussians are different from all those God know who


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## Duya

jazyk said:


> I know no Belarussian, but let me point out to something that really went against my expectations:
> 
> Polish, Czech and Macedonian, and God knows what else, have very similar verbs that require the same preposition na.



Well, Serbo-Croatian does not; Macedonian and Bulgarian probably do, but for somewhat different reason -- lack of proper genitive forces them to use constructs like на+_noun.

_In Serbo-Croatian, both types of coustruct are possible, but have different semantics: 
Ja čekam Petra. = I'm waiting that Peter arrives.
Ja čekam na Petra. = I'm waiting that Peter does his part of the job.

Koga čekaš? = Who are you waiting for [to arrive]?
Na koga čekaš? = Who are you waiting for [to do his part of the job]? (i.e. Why didn't you do it yet?)


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## papillon

cyanista said:


> ... Since the beginning of the nineties another version which is supposedly "closer to the roots" has been popular among those seeking the renaissance of Belarusian.


This situation parallels closely the situation in Ukraine, where the Ukrainian that I learned in the school is being gradually replaced by the variant more common in the western part and which shares a number of features with the Polish language.

In Ukrainian I would say чекаю тебе, and this is a feature shared with Russian where the verb ждать doesn't require a preposition: жду тебя. However, I believe nowadays the чeкаю на тебе is becoming the norm.


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## cyanista

papillon said:


> In Ukrainian I would say чекаю тебе, and this is a feature shared with Russian where the verb ждать doesn't require a preposition: жду тебя. However, I believe nowadays the чeкаю на тебе is becoming the norm.


In the book that Setwale mentions it is stated that if the "waiting is quite definite" than you need the preposition на after чакаць, otherwise just the genitive.  This and quite a few other things in the book look extremely weird to me but well...


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