- Forum >
- Topic: Czech >
- "Jak vysoká je ta osoba?"
28 Comments
'člověk' ≈ 'human' rather than 'person'. You wouldn't normally say 'How tall is that human?'...
Ooooooh!! Ok! I think I will rememeber that. It's funny, hahaha! Dekuji!
Well, actually you would if you know the persons gender, like "describe that man (unknown) to me, how tall was that man?" - in this case you use "clovek" as "man", (clovek is male, osoba is female). Or you could say "This is a good man" about someone and also use "clovek.
In Czech both clovek [MAN] and osoba [PERSON] are used when referring to someone unknow. Usage frequency is imho 80% for clovek, esp. in spoken Czech. Clovek [HUMAN] means also 'a member of lidstvo [HUMANKIND]'
I'm just wondering now, what is the difference between "this" and "that", any language, cuz in Polish it's pretty much interchangeable
See https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/4325/using-that-and-this-interchangeably and related questions there and elsewhere on the internet.
Polish speaker here - it is not interchangable. Eng - PL m/f/n This - ten/ta/to That - tamten/tamta/tamto
In another excercise they say: "Jak je ta mašina stará?" (How old is that machine?). So can we use here the same words order and say: "Jak je ta osoba vysoká?" Are both options acceptable?
Of course. Real word gender and grammatical gender are not always the same. Osoba is feminine, so you need ta here. Even if you're talking about a man.
Excuse me for being late to say thank you, endless_sleeper. Thanks to you, my question was resolved and it became clear. Děkuji moc.
As far as I know "ta/to/ten" are more like "the/that". Actually it should be a kind of "not defined distance". If you want to say "this" It would be "tahle" or "tato".
"Jak vysoká je tahle/tato osoba?"
Signed: student of Czech language trying to share the knowledge of my native Czech teacher.
Thank you, that does clarify this somewhat :) I speak Polish (which is fairly similar to Czech) and we also use "ta, to, ten" which roughly covers "this, the" (usually the object being close to you) and "tamta, tamto, tamten" which would be more "that" (object being farther away than "this"), it's all confusing... :P
In Czech, "ten, ta, to" is used for "undefined" distance mostly, sometimes for further away, but rarely for close to the speaker.
"tamten, tamta, tamto" is specifically used for long distance "that ... over there"
"tento, tato, toto" (colloquially "tenhle, tahle, tohle") is used specifically for objects close to the speaker.
103
Hello! In french language, "this" is "celui-ci" and "that" is "celui-là". For example: "Do you like the books I write? Yes, but this one is better than that one!" (He has the books befront of him.)
Czech to French:
ten/ta/to: ce/cette/ça
tento/tato/toto (colloq. tenhle/tahle/tohle): celui-ci
tamten/tamta/tamto: celui-là
Jak - How - asking for an adverb, how something is done (slowly, nicely, in a big way ...) or the property of an adjective (how big, how good, how fast, how pretty,...)
Jaký - How is something like? What Kind of? - asking for an adjective (good, big, pretty, ...)
Co? Asks for a noun in accusative or nominative? For a subject or object. a car, a table, an illness, a fish
Jaký? Asks for and adjective, for dome property or quality of something. nice, ugly, green, warm
