I was doing Duolingo recently and I felt pretty confused when for quite a few translations for German “man” (which means one, not man, man is written with an extra n, Mann) and they always translated as “you” instead of one, which just doesn’t feel right for me since it is too ambiguous and made me think that maybe English speakers don’t use it too much.
You would never expect that. / One would never expect that.
They have completely different meaning IMO and it’s something I would never interchange in Spanish for example.
If I understand what you’re saying here, then yes, “one” in English is rather ambiguous. You just displayed it actually by using it as an equivalent to “you.” In which, also yes, I would personally find that sentence very strange to come upon in the wild.
However, the less ambiguous usage, in the third person usage, as a replacement for he/she/they(singular)/it sounds more natural. It’s still ambiguous to a degree though because a writer can shift between third person and first and even second person all using the same pronoun. Actually this is beginning to sound problematic and perhaps explains things…
I think it’s basically relegated to usage in rhetorical writing (rarely speech I imagine. I would literally never say the pronoun one unless I was quoting something) where you’re meant to be speaking not as yourself and not about actual people but rather a hypothetical you or hypothetical third person… if that makes sense. That’s the way it’s used as far as I can tell anyway. Academic papers where one wants to appear lofty and above the fray, so to speak. See, even there you can substitute in first person “I” (I want) or second person “you” (you want) or third person “they” (they want). It’s too ambiguous to use for any other purpose than when you are intentionally being ambiguous, such as academic papers, rhetoric, stuff like that. Using it in a pithy quote, like the OP, might be good too.
English is weird because it gets all these relics that aren’t used but exist and can be used. A weird confusing language even for native speakers…
I was doing Duolingo recently and I felt pretty confused when for quite a few translations for German “man” (which means one, not man, man is written with an extra n, Mann) and they always translated as “you” instead of one, which just doesn’t feel right for me since it is too ambiguous and made me think that maybe English speakers don’t use it too much.
You would never expect that. / One would never expect that.
They have completely different meaning IMO and it’s something I would never interchange in Spanish for example.
If I understand what you’re saying here, then yes, “one” in English is rather ambiguous. You just displayed it actually by using it as an equivalent to “you.” In which, also yes, I would personally find that sentence very strange to come upon in the wild.
However, the less ambiguous usage, in the third person usage, as a replacement for he/she/they(singular)/it sounds more natural. It’s still ambiguous to a degree though because a writer can shift between third person and first and even second person all using the same pronoun. Actually this is beginning to sound problematic and perhaps explains things…
I think it’s basically relegated to usage in rhetorical writing (rarely speech I imagine. I would literally never say the pronoun one unless I was quoting something) where you’re meant to be speaking not as yourself and not about actual people but rather a hypothetical you or hypothetical third person… if that makes sense. That’s the way it’s used as far as I can tell anyway. Academic papers where one wants to appear lofty and above the fray, so to speak. See, even there you can substitute in first person “I” (I want) or second person “you” (you want) or third person “they” (they want). It’s too ambiguous to use for any other purpose than when you are intentionally being ambiguous, such as academic papers, rhetoric, stuff like that. Using it in a pithy quote, like the OP, might be good too.
English is weird because it gets all these relics that aren’t used but exist and can be used. A weird confusing language even for native speakers…