Amharic arrival reports and Polish choices about the speaker
A source first-person verb may leave gender open
Amharic “መጣሁ” reports that the speaker came, without selecting a different first-person form for a man and a woman. Polish arrival reports can require that distinction: “przyszedłem” is masculine and “przyszłam” feminine. Both can describe the same completed arrival, but they represent the speaker differently.
This is a genuine information gap in this direction. The source verb’s person marking tells the translator who is speaking grammatically, but it does not necessarily supply the gender needed for the selected Polish past form. A surrounding self-description may resolve the choice. Do not take the gender of an Amharic listener or another mentioned person as evidence about the first-person speaker.
Reading something is not always finishing it
Polish distinguishes imperfective and perfective verbs. In a past reading report, czytałem presents reading without itself asserting that the whole item was finished; przeczytałem can present the reading as completed. An Amharic past form should therefore be interpreted with its complements and context before one target aspect is selected.
For a source message about yesterday’s activities, the speaker may simply be reporting time spent reading. In a reply to whether a document has been fully read, completion is central. The same broad dictionary meaning read does not settle both cases. A Polish translation that adds completion can change whether the reader believes a task is still outstanding. Conversely, failing to convey an explicitly finished task can understate what the Amharic speaker has accomplished.
Courtesy changes the predicate as well as the address
Amharic respectful second-person address does not map to Polish familiar ty merely because only one person is being addressed. Polish pan and pani are used in courteous singular address with third-person verbal agreement. The target choice also distinguishes the person addressed as male or female.
Amharic itself can distinguish familiar male and female addressees, but its respectful address is not a ready-made Polish agreement pattern. Establish whether the source is familiar or courteous, then select the appropriate target construction. In a saved question, changing only the visible address word can leave the Polish verb in an incompatible person. The whole question needs to maintain one relationship between speaker and listener.
Identified objects do not acquire a universal Polish article
Amharic can mark a noun phrase as definite and mark certain objects overtly. Polish has no general definite article equivalent to that source marker. It does, however, inflect nouns and their modifiers for case. These two facts must be kept separate: absence of an article does not mean absence of grammatical marking.
A book already identified in the Amharic conversation may remain identifiable in Polish through the exchange itself. Adding a demonstrative on every repetition can create unnecessary pointing or contrast. Meanwhile, the noun still needs the case appropriate to its target role. Resolve reference, case and aspect independently; none can be reliably inferred from the shape of a single Amharic suffix.
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