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- "Jsou Matěj a Kateřina manžel…
"Jsou Matěj a Kateřina manželé?"
Translation:Are Matěj and Kateřina husband and wife?
40 Comments
I got the answer wrong and I was corrected with "Are Matěj and Kateřína spouses?". What did you write precisely to be wrong yourself?
Related question: Could "manželé" be translated with "a couple" or is it overtranslating? And a remark: The Czech sentence gives a short i to Kateřina while the English correction gives a long í.
If the purpose of the exercise is to say that Matěj and Kateřina are married to each other -- which I believe it is -- your answer probably was marked incorrect because including "a" doesn't make that point.
While there's nothing grammatically wrong with the phrase "a husband and a wife," that would suggest that Kateřina and Matěj are both married, but not necessarily to each other. "Manželé" may not have that meaning.
574
I think you could say “spouses.” Or “a married couple,” but that would be a rather free translation.
201
Is manzele a noun or a past participle? Does it mean "spouses", "two people who are a formal couple" or "married"?
Because why would you randomly switch the order? Many exercises require hundreds of alternative answers to be in the system. If you wanted DL to also accept such unnecessary switching, all the possible answers would multiply by two. I think it's easier to just keep Jill and Jack as they are instead of turning them willy nilly into Jack and Jill.
Right, my bad - I assumed something wrongly about the exercise, probably overworked :D
Anyway, Matěj and Kateřina are listed one after the other in a certain order. Were you trying to say that Matěj is a wife and Kateřina is a husband? Otherwise it's still unnecessary switching, like saying: "I have a son and a daughter: Jane and John" - makes it sound like your son's name in Jane, etc. With unisex names it would be misleading, you wouldn't know which is which.
Also, it has been discussed a few times in this discussion.
574
→ koneji1: Certainly you have read angiedaytripper's explanation on this page? I think it perfectly applies to your question.
LelandSun's hint that Matěj is unlikely to be the wife and Kateřina is unlikely to be the husband is quite noteworthy, too.