"Why do sheep eat it?"
Translation:Proč jej žerou ovce?
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Both the neuter demonstrative pronoun "to" and the neuter personal pronoun "ono" can function as the English "it". Those were the nominative forms. The accusative of "to" is also "to". The accusative of "ono" is "ho", "je", and "jej" (equivalent except for applicable sentence positions) without a preposition, and "ně" and "něj" (equivalent) after a preposition.
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It's the accusative (with no preposition) so it would be "jej." I'm assuming it could also be "ho" or "je" also, but I don't recall whether or not there are special rules for those.
This seems super sensitive to word order. I keep getting it wrong for things like "Proč žerou jej ovce?" or "Proč ovce je žerou?". Is the word order important and particular here, or is Duolingo just being picky?
The pronouns are enclitics which must always be in second position.
Are you saying that a pronoun can ONLY be the second word in a sentence? EVER? If that's the case, it would be a very helpful rule to know!
Life would be too easy if that was true. It seems to be true only if the pronoun refers to the object of the sentence and it is a question. For sentences like "where is his house" the order would rather be "Kde je jeho dům?" But for "Where can I find him?" it is "Kde ho můžu najít?"
Yes, that was too much to hope for... Thank you for the clarification. If I'm lucky, I'll remember your explanation! (IF.)
From Duolingo: Some of the forms can only appear in the second position in the clause (like the verb particle se). These "clitics" are the forms listed in italics [tě, ho]. Using these outside of the second position is an error, except when a higher priority second-place item, such as the verb particle, pushes the pronoun to the right. Using the two-syllable alternatives to the clitics in the second position tends to be emphatic, sometimes to the point of clashing with the ordering in the rest of the sentence, and thus also an error.
https://www.duolingo.com/skill/cs/Personal-Pronouns/tips-and-notes
The orders you are proposing are foreign to Czech. I would not call Czech w.o. or our handling of it super sensitive, but you can only push it so far.
Why is "proč ovce žerou to ?" not correct please ? It is written in the lesson that why can use "to" for "it"...
Thanks :) It's hard to find the good order of the words ^^ I tried "proč ovce to žerou ?", and it's incorrect too ! So hard (I'm french ^^)
With this sentence I actually learned that sheep is in both singular and plural. I hadn't understood why it was žerou and not žere.
To is a clitic and hence must be in the second position. Check the discussion with AlanFirest and read the Tips and notes.
"ho" (and "jej") is one of the clitics - short unstressed words that must be in the second position.
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To máte pravdu, ale pořád to nevysvětluje proč není přijímám předklad: Proč to ovce jí?
No to právě vysvětluje :))
- Jedna ovce jí.
- Dvě ovce jedí.
https://prirucka.ujc.cas.cz/?slovo=j%C3%ADst
Čili:
- Proč to ovce jí/žere? -- Why does a/the sheep eat it?
- Proč to ovce jedí/žerou? -- Why do sheep eat it?
Pokud ovce žerou např. salát nebo ječmen, řekneme, že žerou "jej", ale anglicky "it". Jde to samozřejmě přeložit i jako "Proč to ovce žerou?"
"jej" has to be in th second position like all short pronouns. And if you use a long pronoun (jeho) to stress it, it would be in the last position.
In the English sentence - "Why do sheep eat it? - "sheep is plural, so žerou is needed in the Czech translation. We know it's plural here, because it is "Why DO sheep EAT it" and not "Why DOES A/THE sheep EAT it."