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- "Ty se o toho koně nestaráš!"
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Is there a difference in Czech between "not taking care of a horse" versus "not caring about the horse"? These are two different concepts in English
yes, i believe there is: "not taking care of the horse" is the sentence above - "nestarat se o toho koně", and it means that you don't feed him enough and you don't clean his stable "not caring about the horse" is "nezajímat se o toho koně" (but you could also translate it as "nestarat se o toho koně"), and it means that the horse is not important to you, you're not interested in him (it's like the sentence "i don't care" - "nezajímá mě to/je mi to jedno")
The natural order is always: "Sbj." + se/si + object, like this case? Regardless if there are some other ways to construct this phrase, I mean :3.
"Ty se o toho koně nestaráš." - YOU are not taking care of the horse. "Nestaráš se o toho koně." - You are NOT TAKING CARE of the horse. "O toho koně se nestaráš." - You are not taking care OF THE HORSE.
All these examples can be twisted even more by adding stress to a single word. Czech can be complicated like that.
That's interesting. In Russian, Ukrainian, and Polish, the word(s) at the end of the sentence take the emphasis, the opposite of your Czech examples. It would translate as follows (using Czech to avoid other languages):
Ty se o toho koně nestaráš. - You don't take care of that horse.
Nestaráš se o toho koně. - You don't take care of that horse.
O toho koně se nestaráš. - You don't take care of that horse.
In order to emphasize "you," the translation would be something like „O toho koně nestaráš ty.” The apparent redundancy of including ty after the 2nd-person conjugation of the verb nestaráš, especially last in the sentence, is there for emphasis.
This is the standard rule of emphasis in written Russian, Ukrainian, and Polish, when italics, bold, or CAPS are not used for emphasis. Obviously in the spoken languages, vocal intonation emphasizes the words in the sentence.
I do know there's one rule that "se" should always be the second phrase, but other than that it's pretty free.
I agree with the comment about the difference between 'caring for' and 'caring about'. 'Care about' is still accepted as a correct answer and the heading over the verb in the notes should be amended.
Why not thator this horse? Why only 'the hoře IS accepted'? Why look after this horse is not accepted - i believe the meaning is the same?
