"Jsou Matěj a Kateřina manželé?"
Translation:Are Matěj and Kateřina husband and wife?
36 Comments
I wrote "Are Matej and Katerina married?" and it was accepted as being correct.
It really should be accepted. All accepted forms accept "married" and "husband and wife" equally.
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.
I answered with the given translation of manželé as "husband and wife", so I got it correct. However, when I was hovering over the word the only other translation I saw was "husbands", which made me wonder if "spouses" was an acceptable input.
This hint is not applicable to this sentence. It is a possible translation of "manžélé" in certain sentences. Not in this one though. It means literally husbands, that means male spouses. For example: They are the husbands of those women. Oni jsou manželé těch žen.
a couple is pár, i.e., a group of two
sometimes meaning "a few":
pár dolarů - a couple of dollars
It is much more general than manželé and can't be used here. A couple does not have to be married.
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I think the order of "husband and wife" should follow the order of the names given in the subject "Matěj and Kateřina".
I agree. The order of the first pair should match the order of the second pair. Another example: "Mary and Mr. Smith are student and teacher."
In English certain word pairs almost always occur in a set order.
Knife and fork
Salt and pepper
Husband and wife.
Putting them the other way around sounds very strange to a native speaker
Although I agree those word sets are odd on their own out of the known order; is there anything that makes them incorrect when switched?
I wrote "are Matěj and Kateřina a wife and a husband" and it was marked incorrect, but i think it should be correct.
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.
Is manzele a noun or a past participle? Does it mean "spouses", "two people who are a formal couple" or "married"?
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Noun meaning "spouses". Novomanžele = lit. new husbands = newly wed. Still a noun.
What this? manželé? Yes it does, but there is currently no same-sex marriage in Czechia, we have registered partnership.
mason744522 asked the same question here four months ago. And VladaFu answered:
“Are you sure you read the previous comments? Read those by angiedaytripper and BoneheadBass again.”
This answer seems still valid.
“Manžele” was translated in the exercise as “husbands” but when I wrote “Are Matěj and Kateřina husbands” it said it was incorrect… why??
iyoossaev wrote: Noun meaning "spouses". Novomanžele = lit. new husbands = newly wed. Still a noun.
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Thanks for stating that in my stead ;) On that note, I they are not "husbands," because they represent two genders, so they are "a husband and a wife". But “manžele” indeed means husbands (that is, multiple male spouses). Duolingo is not made by linguists, so I suggest taking everything here with a grain of salt, especially the dictionary hints ;)
The hints often show translations which, are possible translations of the word, but it may be a translation with a different meaning used in some other sentence.
Seeing as 'manzele' refers to spouse's why is "Are Matěj and Kateřina husband and wife" accepted where as "Are Matěj and Kateřina wife and husband" not accepted?
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I guess Matej is not the wife or Katerina the husband may have something to do with it.
Are you sure you read the previous comments? Read those by angiedaytripper and BoneheadBass again.
Grammatically no, but keep the original order in your translations. This is a general rule here.
Why is manzele spelled with a long e at the end (adjective)? Would manzeli (the noun) be acceptable?
If you use DL's browser version read the Tips and notes:” “…manžel (husband) is noteworthy. It has an odd plural, manželé…” (my emphasis).
As the old saying goes: When the tips and notes are good, they're great. When they are bad, they're still quite good… Here they seem to answer your question pretty well.
