Anything

[Marijka]

Split from here.

Myslę, że idea tego zdania była taka, że ten nieszczęsny zah zrobi wszystko, a nie cokolwiek, więc:

In my opinion everything would be much better then anything.

So, now it is really perfect, isn't it?

BTW Aren't we forget that hash is a native English speaker?

I think zah will do any thing, not each and every single thing, so anything would be better
Myślę, że idea tego zdania jest taka, że zah zrobi cokolwiek, byleby to doprowadziło do zamierzonych skutków, a nie że zrobi wszystko ("wszystkie rzeczy") Ale chyba sie czepiamy
As someone said, we're language freaks

 

[mc84]

I can hardly agree. Simply because it doesn't go with grammar rules; in positive sentences you use "some-" (here something), in questions and negatives "any-".

And I'd stick to these rules, in spite of the fact that in Polish any- sounds close.

 

[Marijka]

I can hardly agree. Simply because it doesn't go with grammar rules; in positive sentences you use "some-" (here something), in questions and negatives "any-".

Well, theoretically, yes, there is such a rule, but practically it's not that simple, look at the sentence : "He was prepared to do anything to make a bit of money" or "Anything would be better than..." (both taken from grammar book). They are neither questions nor negative sentences. I think English is more flexible. I still think anything would be better in this case.

 

[mc84]

Yep, my mistake. I've been teaching beginners too long to see the broader view of this problem.

You're right, anything is
1. what I said
2. what you said so any object/situation etc. and that was clearly illustrated by your sample sentences.

However, getting back to the translation, in the given context I'm inclined to think that everything is better than anything. Imagine this sentence again (with a small change added; maybe you won't like it either ):

and there's zah, who's going to (gonna depending on the style) do everything to stop me from getting in touch with you.

Why is it better? Well, because he's determined, as you can see, to prevent sb from doing sth. Anything would deprive this sentence of a part of its original meaning, inadvertently conceal some information.

Think it over, and tell me what you think. It looks that we made a storm in a teacup... ooops

 

[Seana]

Hi

I think we all should wait for a hush version.

The suggestion was given by me is only for a fun, because I have seen that we start taking our doctor's degrees in this topic.
marijka thank you very much for your surmise but I am not the person who could be addicted by language because my skills in English aren't good enough to be the one. If you didn't mind I would like to ask all of you for some help to improve it.
And really I agree with marijka that any thing has a little different meaning but mc84 is probably right that anything could be used in the questions and negatives senteces or maybe for if- clauses but ...maybe we ought to ask a native speaker.
So, according Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary
pronoun anything means
any such thing
any thing whatever
adverb - anything - means at all

Regards Seana

 

[Marijka]

marijka thank you very much for your surmise but I am not the person who could be addicted by language because my skills in English aren't good enough to be the one

You welcome And...you are HERE, so you are addicted

You made me do that. Now I have to refer to authorities Bryan Adams & Steve Wonder:
"Everything I do, I do it for you" = Wszystko co robię, robię dla Ciebie.
"For you, I would do anything" = Dla Ciebie zrobiłbym wszystko.
So wszystko, can be either anything, or everything in English. And the difference is :
"Everything I do, I do it for you" means that every single thing that he did, does, or will do is for "the girl", so there are particular, real things that he does, and ALL of them he does for her
"For you, I would do anything" means that he would do anything she asks for, there aren't concrete things, there are just possibilities ( and if he did so, he could say, "I did everything you asked me to", but he has't done it yet, it's just a possibility). And the same is about zah, he's got a lot of possibilities and it's not so important which thing exactly he's going to do.





(problem w tym, że zakres semantyczny zaimków nieokreślonych, jest jak nazwa wskazuje nieokreślony)

But, I think we're drifting away from original topic.