"Whose machine is that?"

Translation: Čí je ten stroj?

[AaronDean15]

The audio for just the "Čí" is not correct

[Ronsen4]

"Čí mašina je ta?" is wrong but "Čí mašina je to?" is correct. Can somebody clarify please?

[kacenka9]

i will try. TA here is pretty much THE in spite of Czech not having articles. So "Whose is THE machine." is fine but "Whose machine is THE. " is not.

TO stands for THAT or even IT/THIS, (depends) and you would get Whose machine is it.

[justinhll]

So is it the same thing with ten? Do you always use "to" in that form of question?

[SJihqV]

"Čí je ten stroj" is right, but "ćí je ten mašina" isnt? Why?

[VladaFu]

Mašina is feminine: Čí je ta mašina?

Compare with Latin machina, which is also feminine. Also the original Greek word is feminine, but the direct influence to modern languages is through Latin.

[Pantherette69]

How can a mechanical object be feminine?

[BoneheadBass]

Grammar. Many (most?) languages have grammatical gender as an important feature. If this is your first exposure to grammatical gender, it may take some time and effort to get used to it. :-)

[loopyelly]

Why couldn't a mechanical object be feminine?!

[Ftirawira20]

What's the difference between "stroj" and "mašina"?

[Sp00ndotexe]

I'm a bit confused, why could it be "Čí je to stroj?" and "Čí je ten stroj?"
These seem like two different genders - (neuter, masculine)?

[kk9CAu4k]

'to' is third person singular 'it', 'ten' is masculine singular 'that'. So the difference is 'whose machine is IT' and 'whose machine is THAT'. 'to' is also neuter singular 'that' that may be a bit confusing

[kk9CAu4k]

Is 'Koho je ten stroj?' also correct or can't you use koho in that way?