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- "Ony jsou staré?"
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You've got it all mixed up a bit. :)
Oni - they for masculine animate Oni jsou muži. 'They are men.'
Ony - they for masculine inanimate and feminine Ony jsou stroje. 'They are machines.' Ony jsou ženy. 'They are women.'
Ona - they for neuter Ona jsou štěňata. 'They are puppies.' or more commonly used to jsou 'those are' To jsou štěňata. 'Those are (they are) puppies.'
Please note that ona means 'she' as well.
Hope it helps and happy learning!
Nope. I have used it, because the word itself 'zvířata' is a neuter. It wasn't a very good example, though, so I have changed it now, it should be slightly clearer.
Note, that 'they' may sometimes mean the obvious 'They (the animals) are animals.' and sometimes there is some hidden context 'They (the men) are (like) animals.'
As a pretty important side-note: As a native speaker, I would not use the form 'ona - neuter plural' that much, even though it is grammatically correct. That's why it's pretty difficult to come with an example that is both grammatically correct and 'natural-sounding.'
Instead 'ona - they neutral plural' I would say 'To jsou...' which corresponds to 'those are' and which is used A LOT.
To make it more clear, look at some examples.
'Praha, Brno, Plzeň?' 'To jsou města.' = 'Prague, Brno, Pilsen?' 'Those are cities./They are cities.'
'To jsou štěňata.' = 'Those are puppies./They are puppies.'
Hope it helps and happy learning!
For a group of men and women, you'd use "oni."
I'm not sure what would be used for a group of nouns that are NOT men and women but are of different grammatical genders -- for example, if a magazine (časopis, masc), a book (kniha, fem), and a pen (pero, neu) are lying on a table. Maybe you'd just use "to jsou" in a case like that.
But if you wanted to say something about a horse (kůň, masc), a cow (kráva, fem) and a pig (prase, neu) wandering around in a barnyard, maybe it would still be "oni."
At least, that's my GUESS, for what it's worth!