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- "What is it, a girl or a boy?"
"What is it, a girl or a boy?"
Translation:Co je to, děvče nebo chlapec?
18 Comments
It is correct and accepted. You might have made a different mistake.
Is this part wrong "holka nebo kluk" because "it" is neuter -- therefore I have to use neuter forms of girl and boy? Lord help me.
No, You always use "je to" for all genders. Je to kluk? Je to holka? Je to dítě? Jsou to kluci? Jsou to holky? Jsou to města? Alway "je to/to je" or "jsou to/to jsou" for all genders.
Not here. Sometimes it could be but the main meaning is different (What is it? a car vs. What kind of a car is it? a red one).
183
"co je ono, holka nebo kluk" -- is it the ono that is incorrect? I thought an earlier sentence, "that is it" was "to je ono".
One is a quite special word. It is indeed "it" https://prirucka.ujc.cas.cz/?id=ono but it is not used too often in the regular sense in nominative. To some extent it becomes defective in modern Czech.
Please understand that the English "it" is pretty overloaded and means something else in different use cases.
Namely, in the extremely common "Co je to?" / "Je to X" / "To je X". You cannot use "ono".
Ono would be used when speaking about some particular thing represented by the "it".
Vidíš to dítě? Ono si hraje.
Do you see the child? It (he/she?) is playing.
Then ono can be used in specisl subject-less sentences like: Ono prší. It is raining. However, here it is used more as a stressing particle rather than a real subject.
Finally, you can use the different ono from the onen/ona/ono triple. Ono dítě = that child.
"Jaké je to?" means "What is it like?". But you really want "What is it?" "Co je to?"
