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- "Nevidím velkou lišku, ale ve…
"Nevidím velkou lišku, ale velkého psa."
Translation:I can't see a big fox but a big dog.
27 Comments
The English translation here is an incorrect direct translation. This is not how this idea is articulated in English. "I don't see a big fox, but I see a big dog" is a possible solution.
I thought this. Or if you wanted to avoid repeating 'see' you might possibly say: "I don't see a big fox; rather a big dog"
While it's certainly true that direct, literal translations often don't work out so well, I don't think that's a problem here. There's absolutely nothing wrong with the English sentence. Since DL allows for multiple translations, some alternatives may be accepted, too.
If someone says "look at that big fox" and it looks like a dog to you, you would say "i don't see a big fox but a big dog" (example of how this sentence could be used)
But "I can't see" and "I don't see" mean two different things! "can't see" would be used when it's not possible to see. Perhaps a person is blind or it is dark or something is obstructing the viewer's line of sight. Can nevidět be used in these cases?
In English, when talking about senses in the present continuous tense, you can say "I can see/I can hear/etc." in place of "I am seeing/I am hearing/...". That is why "I can't see..." is accepted here.
"I can't" - when talking about abilities - is "nemohu".
"Don't see" is accepted. But we have a report in the system, that came in at the same time as your post, for "I don't see a big fox but a BOG dog." Oops?
it should be translated "I don't see a big fox", and I can assume that because in Serbian, 'ne vidim' means both "I don't see" and "I can't see", and Serbian and Czech are similar languages. it depends on the context, but in this case it should be translated "I don't see" because it implies that the person sees a dog instead.
"I don't see" and "I can't see" normally mean the same thing and both are accepted.
"I don't see" and "I can't see" normally can be differently translated in Serbian and that's why I wrote 'and', but forgot to explain that "I can't see" has two meanings, thinking that further discussion about that laguage is irrelevant here considering that this is a Czech lesson. But thank you for your explanation.
As someone else has noted, there are no demonstrative pronouns in the Czech sentence. In their absence, the translation is usually with "a" rather than with "the."
Pes is nominative, What's needed here is the accusative for the direct object, so... psa. Declension available here (first table): https://cs.wiktionary.org/wiki/pes
I don't understand why it is velkou lišku, but velkého pes. Are they different cases?
They are both in the accusative case in this sentence. But liška is feminine and pes is masculine animate.
I wrote 'I don't see any big fox...' and it was not accepted. Is it because of its wrong or strange English or just a missing solution? Thx.
