German Translation
Sie kannten Tom besser als ich
“Du kennest Tom besser als ich.”
Du kanntest, es ist Imperfekt in den originellen Satz, nicht Present Subjunktiv!
Außerdem, du hast Recht, weil Sie kannten soll als Znał Pan / Znała Pani / Znali Państwo / Znały Panie übergesetzt werden. Znałeś Toma beduetet du kanntest Tom.
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I’m also curious about another thing:
Should it be “ich” or “mich”?
I.e. is it
You knew Tom better than you knew me.
or
You knew Tom better than I knew him.
I suspect, by using “mnie” it’s the former, so it should be “mich” in german.
Also, google translate suggests “niż mnie” instead of “ode mnie”… Are both valid?
As a native Polish speaker, my first thought is that it means besser als ich, so lepiej niż ja. It is ambiguous even for a native, and it can mean either, but in this particular case besser als ich sounds better than I knew him as a better translation. The source of confusion is that od / ode comes from prasłowiański, and as the case of many words with this legacy, they have imprecise application.
niż ja is unambiguous. Both are correct. niż ja and ode mnie mean better than I, whereas niż mnie means better than me. As a bonus, the sentence nikt nie znał Toma lepiej jak ty would mean no one knew Tom better than you.
Archived URL of the article: https://archive.is/H95RL.
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