"My daughter's name is Žofie."
Translation:Jméno mojí dcery je Žofie.
19 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
For anyone interested: "Moje/má dcera se jmenuje Žofie." is much more natural to say in Czech. We don't normally follow the English pattern of "someone's name is something", because we have a verb (jmenovat se) that does the job.
Ah so it's more common to say it like "my daughter is named/called Zofie"!
Yes, or "My daughter names herself Žofie" if you want an even more literal translation.
Ohhh I get it now with the "se jmenuje"! That actually hadn't quite made sense to me before, thank you!
Cool :) Your interpretation "...is named..." also works because "se" is also used for a loose passive voice (for how things are generally done - jak se to dělá).
Why can't I write "mojí dcery jméno je žofie"? Is it wrong or does it just sound weird?
Yes, you may use it, but only if you want to sound like a 19th century poet.
Use Jméno mojí dcery je Žofie. or Moje dcera se jmenuje Žofie.
Žofie is the name of my daughter.
MY DAUGHTER's name is Žofie.
MY DAUGHTER is called Žofie.
You inform the person who mentio ed the named Žofie that Žofie is (also) the name of your daughter.
That sounds very Polish somehow. We don't use "to" that way, we simply use the verb "to be", just like English. So "Jméno .... JE ... Žofie." There's no need for "to" here.
"Zofie je jmeno moji dcery" is wrong? I know that what comes at the end of the sentence is STRESSED. So, if you're at the police station and they bring your girl out after arresting her for drunk driving and say "Here's Katerina" and I respond as I did, what would be wrong with that? This word order is killing me. It seems SO arbitrary. Just when I'm thinking "Well ok, it's loose but it's Czech and as a nation they don't eat many salads so... why not?" Then I'm told it's wrong to be loose.
"Žofie je jméno mojí dcery" is a correct sentence - it's a valid word order - and the English equivalent is: "Žofie is the name of my daughter" (same word order, in fact). It's an answer to a question like "Who is Žofie?", or: "Hey, look at this funny name: Žofie" ... "Err, Žofie is the name of my daughter." Another example is when somebody thinks that your friend has a daughter named Žofie and you correct them - "No, it's my daughter's name, not his" - you still get "Žofie je jméno mojí dcery."
In your police station example, you want to stress what the correct name is (as opposed to Kateřina), so you put Žofie at the end, and you still get the default "Jméno mojí dcery je Žofie, (ne Kateřina!)" Why would you want to stress "my daughter" in that example?
Because they brought you the wrong girl! I'm just saying it was marked WRONG which throughly confused me.
As a translation of "My daughter's name is Žofie", it is wrong. If they brought you the wrong girl, you want to stress the name - that's the important point, the contrast, the core of the information. You don't want to stress "my daughter", everybody in that situation already knows you want your daughter back.
There's really nothing complicated here in this example, the Czech word order works just like in English in this simple sentence:
- Jméno mojí dcery je Žofie. - My daughter's name is Žofie.
- Žofie je jméno mojí dcery. - Žofie is the name of my daughter.
Which is what I thought too BUT DUOLINGO did not accept it as an answer. Which thoroughly confused me because I couldn't figure out WHY that word order would be wrong. My example is a just a "what if" but my main concern is why it wasn't accepted. I still don't know. If it comes up again (as some exercises do) I'm going to put the same answer and if it's counted wrong, go to the "my answer should be accepted". The word order thing is very confusing for those of us learning. Well, actually, THE WHOLE LANGUAGE is. But, that's another story.
I don't know how else I can tell you... It is NOT accepted, it should NOT be accepted, and it will NOT be accepted.
The word order is not wrong, but it's the wrong ANSWER to this exercise, because it MEANS something else. I'm telling you over and over again that "Žofie je jméno mojí dcery" is NOT the translation of "My daughter's name is Žofie", therefore it cannot be accepted. It seems to me like the confusion lies somewhere else that in Czech.