"Why is that cat not looking for mice?"
Translation:Proč ta kočka nehledá myši?
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Sounds strange in this question. Naturally you would stress myši and not nehledá.
But: Proč ta kočka nic nehledá? and Proč ta kočka nehledá nic? are both fine.
This answer penalized me for word order with Proč nehledá ta kočka myši. I hear Czechs use this word order often especially in the north east, perhaps adopting germanic word order, but have been told that other than the important second spot word (jsem, se, and the other object articles) that word order is a matter of style
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I thought the verb would be nehleda but was unsure of the ending so I checked it and it told me nevidi instead, which was wrong...
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That's what I thought, that was why I was confused when the hint said that was the verb to use. I reported it as an incorrect hint, but I also wanted to make sure there wasn't something I was missing about why that was what it suggested.
I see, I removed that hint. But be aware that the hint was saying "looking=dívá" and a different hint was saying "looking for=hledá", you should always look for the hints that translate the whole phrase, if there are any.
Not checked if it's the same in the Incub but in the lesson it has "hledat" as the hint for "looking for"
I mean the hint on the English phrase "looking for", the Czech word it gives is "hledat" rather than "hledá".
Why is "Proč nehledá myši ta kočka" not accepted? Is the word order ungrammatical, or does it imply some kind of emphasis on a part you don’t want to topicalize?
The latter. Unless you are wondering why THE CAT isn't looking for cats while other animals around are. Or why is it the cat who is not looking for them.
I assumed that because we're emphasising TA kočka, the cat was the important part of the sentence to stress and therefore used this same word order. I'm glad to know that there are certain situations this word order is acceptable, even if it's not the case here!
Emphasizing is not the exact word. It is actually making it the comment/rheme/focus. See https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Topic_and_comment
Are there other verbs that could replace nehleda' that would require the use of Proc JE ta kocka _ mysi? (It seems "je" is contained within hleda'/nehleda'.) I haven't noticed the use of "proc je ta" so far. Thank you.
there is no compound progressive tense in czech. do not look for separate translations of the english progressive tense "be" forms.
Because nehledají is the third person plural form, but the subject -- kočka -- is singlular.