- Forum >
- Topic: Czech >
- "Ta nová ulice vede jinam."
11 Comments
1007
If my logic doesn't fail me, it's the same difference as between "kde" and "kam". (I'm starting to see patterns in question words and term that relate to them). "Kde" and "jinde" both refer to a place, while "kam" and "jinam" refer to a direction or a verb of motion instead.
Take the following sentences as an example:
Kde jste? - Where are you?; Jsem jinde - I am somewhere else?
Kam jdete? - Where are you going (to)?; Jdu jinam - I am go somewhere else?
On a related note I wouldn't be surprised if besides nikde (nowhere), nikam also exists. Then you could have a sentence like:
Ta nová ulice vede nikam. - That street leads nowhere.
Your logic is great! So, "Kde jeste?" is motionless, and "Kam jdete?" is motion. And, as you supposed, this word "nikam" exists.
Are you a native speaker? I'm not but it sounds rather weird to me. Look at the ngrams, it's used but not a lot: https://goo.gl/cnysn5
It didn't even find "leads to somewhere else".
- 1007
I'm not a native English speaker; I'm Dutch. But I often find the combination "leading to" in some form in other sentences. Maybe it's some sort of automatism of mine that takes over here...
I am British Mandelsoft. 'The street leads to somewhere else' is completely acceptable in everyday speech
I put "the new road leads somewhere else" and hence got this wrong too. I think, in British English at least, that "road" and "street" are more interchangeable than "ulice" and "silnice" are in Czech. Maybe because we give streets names like "Elm Road"
I did live in a street named that way but I would still recommend keeping these terms separate as general terms.
