"Όχι, όχι αυτούς τους άντρες."
Translation:No, not these men.
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So why can't I say "οχι οχι αυτοι οι αντρες" why do I use accusative and not nominative? Sorry if its a silly question
You can say όχι αυτοί οι άντρες (and it is an accepted answer/if it was not accepted for you, please let us know) if you answer to a question that used "these men" in nominative (usually as a subject of the sentence):
-Αυτοί είναι οι άντρες για τους οποίους μου μίλησες; (are these the men that you talked to me about?) -Όχι, όχι αυτοί οι άντρες.
But if the question used "these men" in accusative, you have to answer in accusative (usually as an object of the sentence):
-Αυτούς τους άντρες ψάχνεις; (Are you looking for these men?) -Όχι, όχι αυτούς τους άντρες.
ahhhh I understand now. Okay thank you for that clarification. Also I do duolingo on my computer so I turned off the exercise where you match the words to answer, I set it up to where I type everything and it didn't accept my nominative answer. Thank you again for taking time to answer my question!
Isn't this the accusative? So like
"Βλέπεις αυτούς τους άντρες;"
"Όχι, όχι αυτούς τους άντρες."
Is it like
- Have you seen these men?
- No, I've seen no men (there were no men). ?
I think it means something more like: "Are these the men who are going to paint the house." "No, not these men the ones who are coming tomorrow." Hope that helps.
I will first give the disclaimer that I am not a native Greek speaker, but based on what I have learned, I believe "no, not those men" would be "όχι, όχι εκείνους τους άντρες." The basic distal demonstrative (i.e. "that/those") in Greek is εκείνος.
Why is it not "εκεινοι οι αντρες" why do we sometimes use nominative and then other times (such as here) use accusative?
The nominative and accusative cases are both accepted here, what is not accepted is "εκείνοι" as a translation of "these", since it translates to "those" ;)
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why do we have to use a double "these" in this?
αυτούς και τους
would it be wrong without τους?
αυτούς is the demonstrative pronoun and τους is the article of the noun άντρες/άνδρες.
In this case, the sentence would be wrong if you omit τους
I wrote "Όχι, όχι αυτούς τους άνδρες" and it was marked wrong...isn't "άνδρες" an acceptable alternative for "άντρες"?
I've just done the Determiners unit four times to make sure I got that sentence and it accepted "άνδρες" both times it appeared and it's clearly in the incubator. I'm at a loss.
Hmm, well, I (and, based on the comments, others as well) seem to have had similar experiences with other questions too. I am at a loss as well- I suppose there are just some glitches. Anyway, I really only care to know that I am understanding what I do correctly and incorrectly so that I learn well, so don't stress about it.
Re: nominative vs. accusative, this sentence is almost a fragment (although here it's a complete answer to a question.) It depends on what the question was: "Did these men kill our goats?" The answer would be in nominative because "these men" is the subject of the sentence. "Which men will we draft into the army?" would have the accusative answer, since "men" is the object (we will draft men.)
You can't always tell which will be the correct answer. However, I like Duolingo's use of fragments, since sometimes we learn to speak in segments. And the ambiguity makes us pay attention to the difference between nominative and accusative. (It's kind of fun to make up sentences to fit.)
According to my Greek wife. Both are correct. However, άντρες is used more often. Άνδρες is more rural and slag.
No. Άνδρες is the older form; formal language used mainly in written speech. If you do pronounce it however, it sounds much softer than άντρες and in oral speech it might even be humorous for "effeminate men," especially if you wink when you say it. (th δ sounds softer than d ντ) Ηope I helped a bit. :)
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It cannot be correct: ο άντρας/άντρας (sing., nom.), οι άνδρες/άντρες (pl., nom.) is a masculine noun, so αυτοί (masc.) is the logical form to use here.
You could use: Εκείνες τις γυναίκες watch out for the spelling. That would mean: Those women.
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I find these types of examples (no, not this/that 'object') a bit lacking of context. Some additional info should be mentioned. :)
We're creating a new tree in which we are trying to do that. Your suggestions are appreciated.
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Will we have access to that new tree when it is ready, or will it be available only if you restart the Greek course?