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- Topic: Czech >
- "They are not good."
"They are not good."
Translation:Oni nejsou dobří.
35 Comments
348
Just as I was getting used to "to nejsou.... " here is "oni nejsou... "
Could you please explain the context, when to use to=they/those and when to use oni=they? Could you provide some examples?
I think i get it. In English, ¨they¨ is a perfectly good subject for the sentence, so it seems that ¨to¨ should work But in Czech, it¨s more subtle. ¨To¨needs to preceed an actual noun object, an actual word. Alone, ¨they¨ is far too general in Czech, it could refer to anything. You need to use ¨oni¨
Shouldn't the question have more context to know what "they" is referring to? If I'm the kitchen speaking to someone, I could point to bad fruit on a platter and say, "They aren't good." If that would that change the answer in Czech, then I feel the question should be expanded to include more context.
Please understand that the Czech sentence is the original and the English one is the translation. Also understand that the Czech language has more freedom in the word order and makes use of it to distinguish the topic and the comment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topic_and_comment
Hint: You will find that Czech is has much more flexibility with word order than English does. You will also find that the ability to re-order words in Czech sentences is not infinite or unrestricted. There are rules, and it can take longer than we'd all like to understand, remember, and follow them.
As svrsheque already told you, both are correct here. You almost surely made a typo or some similar type of mistake, because the grading bug doesn't appear to be active any more.
Regarding the rules, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topic_and_comment
Scroll down for tips https://www.duolingo.com/skill/cs/Masculine
Not sure what you mean by "default". Sentences are entered manually and randomly are in masculine, feminine or neutral version. If it is a translation into Czech and it is not clear from the English sentence which gender it is, the system should accept all 3 genders.
36
- You mean "dobrý", not "dobry".
- But "dobrý" is singular (masculine), not plural.
- Plural nominative is "dobré" or "dobrá" or "dobří", depending on what you are talking about.
- Remember, the endings for nouns and the endings for adjectives are not the same in each case!
1156
there is no context here to suggest that 'they' are animate. Dobre and dobri should both be accepted for this English sentence.
36
I think you mean that dobré and dobrá and dobři (feminine plural , neuter plural, masculine plural) should all be accepted. Yes, I agree.
36
No. Correct is "Ty hrady jsou velké". The word "velcí" is masculine plural animate. But here we want "velké", which is masculine plural inanimate.
(There are really four cases in Czech: masc animate, masc inanimate, fem, neuter.)
If you use "je to", "jsou to", "nejsou to" and similar, you need a noun predicate (https://courses.dcs.wisc.edu/wp/grammar/category/predicate-nouns/). Nejsou to dobrá jména. Nejsou to dobří lidé. Nejsou to dobrá slova.
If you are speaking about some actual they and just describing them using adjectives, it is Nejsou dobří. Nejsou dobré. Nejsou dobrá.