Me/I/Myself

[MisSslit]

I thought it was funny to find out how to say ME, MYSELF and I in several languages =)

Please dont repeat languages unless you have different words
Thanks *

 

[zaraza]

Unfortunately, in Romanian language, there is only one form for the nominative form "I" and the "me" form. So you would only have "Eu" (I, me, pronounced yeu, just like the russian letter "e" that is pronounced "ye"), "mine" (accusative form, pronounced mee-neh).

So one way of saying it with a bit of sarcasm in Romanian would sound like
"Eu cu mine si cu Andy"

(somewhat translated as I with me and Andy, when you are reffering to yourself in the 3rd person using the firstname. (Sounds like the "Me, myself and Irene" movie title)

 

[Outsider]

I don't think that sentence works as well in other languages as in English. Here's one where it's not too bad, French: Je, moi-même et moi.

 

[zaraza]

That way you can have in Romanian also "Eu cu mine si cu mine însumi", just that the "mine" is actually the same word, like in the French "moi", "moi-même"

 

[Outsider]

In Portuguese, it sounds completely silly: Eu, eu mesmo e eu.
We don't have a separate subject pronoun like moi.

 

[Frank06]

Hi,

In Dutch:
me - ik - mezelf
mij - ik - mijzelf (more stress)

Groetjes,

Frank

 

[Miguelillo 87]

In Spanish.

Me.- Mí
Myself.- mí mismo
I.- Yo

 

[ireney]

Hmmm let's see what we can do for Greek. Mind you this is in some cases a bit "schematic" since there's the whole cases thing

Εγώ (egO), I
εμένα, μου (emEna, mou) of me
εμένα, με (emEna, me) me

ο ίδιος (o Idios) myself (that's in nominative mind you)

d as the in the
e as in elephants
i as in ink
o as in omnibus
g is actually gamma. Kind of hard to explain properly. Something like Y in you, W in washington, or the way some Spanish-speakers pronounce g and or ll.


P.S. I have to remember how to use the phonetic symbols!

 

[linguist786]

This thread is going to cause problems in my opinion.
Not all languages work like English where we have separate words for each.
Some languages have the same word for two or all three of them. And some languages might not even have a proper "word" for them, but the idea of "myself" can be expressed differently according to the context.

Nevertheless, here are the languages I can give them for:

(me/I/myself)
French: moi/je/moi-même
Urdu: مجهے/ميں/ميں خود (mujhe/maiN/maiN khuud)
Hindi: मुझे/मैं/मैं खूद (mujhe/maiN/maiN khuud)
Gujarati: મને/ઉં/ઉં પોટે (manay/oo/oo potay)

This does not assume, however, that "me" (and "I" and "myself") is always translated as the ones I gave - it always depends on the sentence, like it would in most languages I suspect.

 

[elroy]

In Arabic you could say أنا ونفسي وحالي (ana wanafsi waHaali). We don't really have a separate word for "me" (well, we do - إياي - but it's not used very often except to distinguish between a direct object and an indirect object if both are pronouns) and instead we just use a suffix - so I simply used two different words for "myself" to translate the expression.

 

[Hakro]

Finnish:
I = minä
Myself = minä itse

But me is more difficult because instead of prepositions we have endings: minun, minua, minuna, minuksi, minulla, minulta, minulle, minussa, minusta, minuun, minutta... and maybe some more.

 

[macta123]

In Malayalam : I = nyan ; My = Ente ; Myselves = Nyanan Tanney

 

[Anatoli]

I thought it was funny to find out how to say ME, MYSELF and I in several languages =)

Please dont repeat languages unless you have different words
Thanks *

It's OK to translate the personal pronoun I but for myself all the languages I supply will have a form which also matches yourself, himself, etc.

Russian: я, (меня - direct object or accusative case, genitive), (мне - dative, prepositional), (мной - instrumental)
сам - myself, yourself, etc. - need to explain more grammar
моя, моя, моё, мои (m, f, n, pl) - my/mine + more forms for diffrent cases

In most Slavic languages - I is similar to Russian (pronounced "ya") except for Bulgarian/Macedonian, in Czech it's a long vowel.

Bulgarian/Macedonian: аз (az)
Belarusian: я (ja)
Ukrainian: я (ja)
Serbian/Croatian: ja
Polish: ja
Czech: já


Mandarin Chinese: 我 （wǒ) - I, me
doesn't change if used in different position
自己 （zìjǐ) - self

Japanese: most common but not so commonly used as in English - 私　(わたし - watashi) - I, me
自分　(じぶん　- jibun) - self
Suffice to say that Japanese use personal pronouns much less frequently than Europeans, relationship in a sentence are either implied or can be deducted by use of directional verbs.

German: ich - I, mich - me (direct object), mir (indirect object - dative case)
selbst - self (e.g. ich selbst, du selbst, etc.)

Korean: 나 (na); 저 (jeo) formal, the usage similar to Japanese but I am no Korean expert

 

[robbie_SWE]

... So you would only have "Eu" (I, me, pronounced yeu, just like the russian letter "e" that is pronounced "ye")...

It actually depends Zaraza! "Eu" could be pronounced like [yeu], but it's just as fine to pronounce it [eu] like in Portuguese.

robbie

 

[betulina]

In Catalan I would say straightaway that it is "mi - jo - jo mateix(a)", although as Linguist said, it depends quite a lot on the context ("me" is sometimes "jo", for example).

 

[SoyChino]

In Chinese the three forms are the same:我（wo).

 

[Anatoli]

In Chinese the three forms are the same:我（wo).

Thanks but I already posted the Chinese word.

 

[spakh]

In Turkish
me= beni (bana is to me)
myself= kendim (ben kendim is also possible)
I= ben

 

[Lemminkäinen]

Norwegian:

I: jeg
Me: meg
Myself: meg selv

It can be noted that the movie 'Me, myself and Irene' was translated into Norwegian as 'Jeg, meg og Irene'.

 

[J.F. de TROYES]

In Swahili: I = Mimi, but this pronoun is only used if you want emphasize the same way as "yo" in Spain or "moi, je " in French.
There's no word fo "me", but a prefix added to the verb:
"unaniona" = he's seeing me (una=3rd pers., ni=me, ona=see )

In Amharic: (I can't use the Amharic writing)
I or me= ënea , but in most sentences suffixes are used with verbs.
For "my" a suffix is also generally used: beatea ( pronounced "bete" like in "to get") means "my house"

 

[ridziniece]

In Latvian it is difficult, because of declensional endings + female and masculine forms + singular and plural forms therefore I will give only nominative case for "I" and "myself":

I = es
myself = es pats (male form), es pati (female)
me = man, mani

 

[Tolovaj_Mataj]

In Slovene:

I = jaz
myself = jaz sam
me = mene/me

 

[jun]

In Korean:

I - 나

me - 나를

myself - 나 자신, 나 스스로

 

[Cnaeius]

Italian:

Me - Me
Myself - me stesso
I - Io

 

[samanthalee]

In Chinese the three forms are the same:我（wo).

Not true. As Anatoli has posted. We can say 我和我自己 （wo3 he2 wo3 zi4 ji3）[Me and me self， I and myself]

 

[kusurija]

In Czech: As we have more cases (7 sg. + 7 pl.), than English (2) we have to distinguish:

I (NOM.sg.) = já
(me)
(GEN.sg) mě or mne
(DAT.sg.) mi or mně
(ACU.sg.) mě or mne
(VOC.) - doesn't exist in this word
(LOC.sg.) (o) mně
(INS.sg) mnou
(pl.) (we, us - not theme of this post)

Myself(whose)
můj (GEN. mého, mému, mého, můj, můj!, (o) mém, mým; pl.: mí moji, mých, mým, mé moje, mé moje, mí! moji!, (o) mých, mými.
Myself(who itself)
já sám(NOM.) mě or mne samého... ...


In Lithuanian: with cases the same as in Czech (7 cases)
I = aš
me = manęs, man, mane, manimi, manyje. (no VOC.)

Myself(whose) mano (without cases)
Myself(who itself) aš pats(m.), aš pati(f.) (manęs paties/pačios,..., ...,)

 

[Kanes]

Bulgarian:

I - az
myself - sebesi/sum
me - mene/me

But we don't really use those in speach, just put the verbs in 1st person.

 

[bb3ca201]

In Scottish Gaelic, the subject and the direct object are the same -- so "me" and "I" would be identical: "mi" (and it's actually pronounced like the word "me" in English!). To say "mySELF", you tack "-fhìn" (heen) on to "mi"...and you get "mi-fhìn"

So, instead of repeating "mi" twice, you could say "mi 's mi-fhìn" (I'll admit it sounds awfully weird to the Gaelic ear, but there you go!

 

[lockpicker]

I heard it said in a movie,yo y mi conmigo.

 

[Frank78]

German:

I - Ich
me - mir (dative), mich (accusative)

myself, yourself, hisself,... - selbst (That's not a personal pronoun and thus always stays the same)

 

[sakvaka]

Finnish:
I = minä
Myself = minä itse

But me is more difficult because instead of prepositions we have endings: minun, minua, minuna, minuksi, minulla, minulta, minulle, minussa, minusta, minuun, minutta... and maybe some more.

More specifically:

minä = I

The word me depends very much on the context:
(a) as a direct object, it's either minut (accusative case) or minua (partitive case) depending on its qualities.
(b) otherwise it will take various cases depending on the previous verb or noun phrase. These correspond the English prepositions, but the usage may vary: the Finns don't like themselves, they like FROM themselves.

Myself is "(minä) itse" as a subject and a predicative, "itseni" as other phrasal parts. -ni is the ending "my", and when declinated in cases, the endings are placed before it.

Kenelle puhut? - Itselleni. Who are you talking to? - Myself.
Katsoin itseäni peilistä. I looked at myself in the mirror.

 

[Saluton]

To add to Anatoli's post: the word myself would be typically translated into Russian as я сам (ya sam, male) or я сама (ya sama, female). However, the movie "Me Myself I" was called "Я, опять я и снова я" (Ya, opyat' ya i snova ya - "Me, me again and me again") because it would sound unnatural to translate "myself" literally here. "Me, Myself & Irene" was called "Я, снова я и Ирэн" (Ya, snova ya i Iren - "Me, me again and Irene").

 

[Orlin]

Bulgarian (addition to Kanes' post):
I = аз.
me = accented: мен(e) - accusative, на мен(е) - dative; enclitic: ме - accusative, ми - dative.
In English myself can be a reflexive pronoun and then translated with the reflexive personal pronoun: accented - себе (си), enclitic - се - accusative, си - dative. When used emphatically, the situation is entirely different: I myself = аз сам(m.)/сама(f.), аз самият (m.)/самата (f.) or именно/точно аз. It depends on the context too much.

 

[bibax]

The Czech translation of the movie titles:

Já, mé druhé já a Irena (I, my second I and Irene) = Me, myself and Irene.
Já, jenom já (I, only I). = Me myself I.

 

[olaszinho]

Italian:
me = me, mi, m'
myself = me stesso, me medesimo
I = io

 

[Black4blue]

me doesn't mean beni everytime, in turkish. It might be only ben too. Beni is accusative form of me. Yea it can be nominative, also. Subjective and objective pronouns are the same in Turkish.

 

[iobyo]

I thought it was funny to find out how to say ME, MYSELF and I in several languages =)

Please dont repeat languages unless you have different words
Thanks *

A universal translation of this English-specific phrase doesn't exist, as far as I can tell, in any Slavic language. A literal translation (what has been offered by some the forum members so far) with the first person nominative, accusative and dative does not capture the English original in meaning and makes no sense in a Slavic language.

That's not to say that there aren't any good translation attempts:

The Czech translation of the movie titles:

Já, jenom já (I, only I). = Me myself I.

I've seen a similar attempt in Russian: Я, я и только я, "I, I and only I".

This would also work in other Slavic languages and convey a similar meaning but does not parallel the original's clever use of three separate pronouns.

 

[nimak]

In most Slavic languages - I is similar to Russian (pronounced "ya") except for Bulgarian/Macedonian, in Czech it's a long vowel.

Bulgarian/Macedonian: аз (az)
Belarusian: я (ja)
Ukrainian: я (ja)
Serbian/Croatian: ja
Polish: ja
Czech: já

That is not true.

In Macedonian "I" is јас (jas) [jas]. The form ја (ja) [ja] is widespread in several Macedonian dialects and colloquially too.

In Slovenian "I" is jaz [jás].


p.s. јаз (jaz) [jaz] m. in Macedonian means "ditch", "rift", "gap"...