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- Topic: Czech >
- "Její šaty jsou fialové."
19 Comments
How can I know if this is saying:
Her dress is purple
or
Her dresses are purple.
It seems like they would both be translated the same.
478
if you can't translate jeji saty jsou fialove as her dress is ... and her dresses are... then how would you translate her dresses are purple. ?(and yes it might be ridiculous but i know someone whose dresses are black. she only wears black .)
You can't know which of the two it is. You CAN translate it as either of them.
- 318
So, it all depends on the context whether one or more dresses are spoken about? If yes, then: Understood.
When you say "My pants are blue" in English (or Czech for that matter) without adding "all", it's also unclear whether you mean just a single pair or all your pants.
That said, you'd probably add "all" to make it clear: "Všechny její šaty jsou fialové" - there, unambiguous.
In modern Czech, "šaty" is used for women's dress.
In not too distant past, however, "šaty" was also used to generally refer to "clothes", so when talking to grandmas/grandpas or reading old books, you might come across this meaning too. I believe both are accepted in this course. If you want to refer to clothes nowadays you'd better say "oblečení". It's what most people would use. For men's suit, we use "oblek"; if he has no suit (more common), then either "oblečení" to speak generally or pick the one type of clothes you want to refer to (košile, tričko, kalhoty, ...).
So, is "saty" an irregular word like the English word "pants"? The singular and plural forms are identical, and it gets a plural verb?
Yes, it is. There is no singular.
Similar is kalhoty - (a pair of) trousers, where I at least know what one trouser would be (*kalhota - actually nohavice), but it is never used.
Regarding whether we are talking about one or many dresses, doesn't the ending on fialove indicate the subject is plural. In the tips it says saty gets a plural verb; no mention of how the other words agree.
All other words that have to agree must be plural. There is no singular šaty. It is even morfologically plural (hrady, lesy).
