"I never find good cooks."
Translation:Soha nem találok jó szakácsokat.
18 Comments
Ok, another word order question: Is "Jó szakácsokat soha nem találok" acceptable for this one?
Coming back to this late, but I'm still interested -- is it possible to explain why that one sounds unnatural?
I was thinking for quite a long time how to describe why I feel it unnatural. I've even read some related grammar rules, but unfortunately I cannot really explain why it sounds unnatural for me.
I hardly ever use this word order in a situation like that. I would use the accepted answer ("Soha nem találok jó szakácsokat."). And to be frank I would use "sehol" (literally means nowhere) instead of "soha".
The closest I would say is "A jó szakácsokat sehol nem találom" (with a definite article, but it definitely emphasizes the subject, almost like: "they are the good cooks who I cannot find, I don't know where they went|are") and I used definite conjugation ("találom" instead of "találok").
After I've written this, I tend to feel I have more problem with the word "soha" than with the word order itself.
I'm terribly sorry, but I'm afraid I didn't make it clearer, quite the contrary...
Coud one also use Soha Sem or Sosem in stead of Soha Nem? I thought I heard that a lot in Hungary, but not sure if I remember correctly.
Shouldn't soha sem... also work? I thought in a later lesson that sem was treated more or less interchangeably with nem when directly after another negative beginning with s-, like soha / semmi / senki.
Why isn't this conjugated in the definite form, since "cooks" are a third person object?
12
The word definite should be a hint.
"cooks" are third person, but not definite third person.
"the cooks, those cooks, my cooks" etc. are definite -- they refer to a specific, definite group of cooks.
"cooks" is not definite.
- 871
Is the choice of using definite conjugation in any way discretionary? I'd have thought "good cooks" are in a league of their own - after all you know if you have a bad one. Thus, are they not definite?
No, you don't get much discretion in the choice. There are pretty hard and fast grammatical rules that decide it.
Here's a summary I wrote up earlier: https://www.duolingo.com/comment/17038425
Why it has to have the "nem" the sentence? Duolingo say that the translation of "never" is "soha nem" and "soha" but it requires the "nem". At least from an english perspective it has not too much sense to say "never not". Any help in here why is it important to include it?
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Hungarian is all about double negatives. :)
If you have any negative pronoun, like soha - never, senki - nobody, semmi - nothing, semelyik - none, and so on, you need a form of nem somewhere to make them work within a sentence.
Just a rule you have to follow but can't really explain. Kinda like the auxiliary "do" in English, where you have to say "She does not read" instead of "She reads not", although the latter would make more sense.
On the other hand a few hundred years ago you very well might have heard "she reads not" being said.
