- niewielki aj = small, slight, of modest size, not large, scant
- strumień mi.noun = a stream, creek. (dim) strumyk, strumyczek = small stream, rivulet
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English Translation
A small stream runs by my house.
using pływać here would be wrong?
“Pływać” in Polish can both mean “to swim” when talking about a person, or “to flow” when talking about something liquid. So it is used correctly here.
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I understand the verb can mean both “to swim” and “to flow”, i was wondering more about the usage of the determinate płynąć vs the indeterminate pływać. When I was learning the very basics of motion verbs, I assumed that pływać would be akin to “runs” and płynąć to “is running right now”, not mentioning a few exceptions of course.
Hmm, I can’t really think of any potential case where you’d use “pływać” to refer to an inanimate object (a liquid).
When talking about liquids, you can basically only use “płynąć”, regardless of whether you mean to say “runs” or “is running right now”.
The “pływać” / “płynąć distinction only applies when talking about animate subjects like people and animals.
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Wow, ok. This information is an absolute game changer for me, I had no idea there is this distinction of verb usage between animate and inanimate objects. Just out of curiosity, is there any other pair of verbs like this that must distinguish between an inanimate and an animate object? Thank you so much!
I think this applies to most of Polish verbs of motion.
For example, we say “woda leci z kranu” (water flows from the tap), but you will never ever hear “woda lata”.
There might be some verbs of motion for which this is not true, but honestly I can’t think of any specific contexts right now.
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