"They do not hear the horse."
Translation:Oni nie słyszą konia.
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Okay, say, in a hypothetical situation, a group of people are lost in the woods, trying to escape a horse. They're trying to listen for it.
Would "Oni nie słyszą konia" be the best wording of their situation? Is the statement more accurately translated as "they do not hear a horse" (could be interpreted as any horse) or can it still mean "they do not hear THE horse."?
Trying to understand how ambiguous the statement is. Like, for people avoiding a man in a movie, "Oni nie słyszą mėżczyzny", is that more immediately understood as not hearing a man in a room or not hearing THE MAN in a room. Is that something that's interpreted from context or is there proper phrasing needed?
Context should make it clear - we don't have 'a/the', so the concept of articles is difficult for Polish people to learn, we just don't think about something like that. You can also say that "the" means the same as "this" and translate it as the appropriate form of "ten", e.g. "tego konia" or "tego mężczyzny".
P.S. "mężczyzny", ė is definitely not a Polish letter ;)