"Jsou to noví lidé."
Translation:They are new people.
18 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
529
A few thoughts you may find helpful.
-
Remember to distinguish between a demonstrative pronoun and a demonstrative adjective. For example 'those are young boys' (pronoun) vs. 'those boys are young' (adjective). In English the same word 'those' is used for both, but in Czech different words or different forms are used for each.
-
In Czech, the singular 'to' can be used even when talking about plural items. So, for example, the Czech sentence here, "Jsou to noví lidé", is literally "It are new people." In any case, remembering my first point above, here "to" is a pronoun, not an adjective.
-
When translating a Czech plural demonstrative adjective, the choices in addition to 'those' include 'the' (those boys = the boys).
-
But when translating the Czech demonstrative pronoun, the choices in addition to 'those' include 'they' (those are boys = they are boys).
409
I don't think there is a situation in English where I would actually say "those are new" instead of "they are new" when speaking of people. If inanimate objects were the subject I would use "those"
Both "to je" and "je to" (and plural "jsou") can be statements as well as questions.
If you need a more in-depth explanation: the personal pronoun "oni" is present in the sentence but left unexpressed. The complete sentence is: "Oni jsou to noví lidé" - you can see how that doesn't have to be a question.
1271
I understand that "jsou to" and "to jsou" can bet pretty interchangeable, but are there certain times where it makes sense to use one over the other?