"The dogs are looking for foxes."
Translation:Lišky hledají ti psi.
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Is there a reason it was not...' ti psi hledaji lišky' or it is that the order did not matter? Just a littLe confused on this one
That syntax is also accepted. Both are fine. It is to show you how crazy flexible the word order can be without loosing sense.
Both dogs and foxes could be nominative. Lisky is nom.pl. & acc.pl. But if we can see the words when people talk, we would see that dogs is only nominative, but it SOUNDS nom. & acc., psi and psy.
My question is, when we are conversing, how would we know he wasn't saying the foxes are looking out, watching out for the dogs. Maybe you say, The dogs are looking for the foxes and the foxes are looking for the dogs. How would you distinguish them, then?
The meaning is basically the same. You usually place the word you want to stress at the end of the sentence: Ti psi hledají LIŠKY. vs Lišky hledají TI PSI.
If I wanted to say “ the foxes are looking for those dogs” would I say “ lišky hledají ty psy “?
I understand the explanation given for how to differentiate the cases when written but how do you differentiate Lišky hledají ti psi and lišky hledají ty psy when spoken?
i do not understand the sense of the sentence. According to the right answer Lišky are the subject and the psi are the object. But in the english version it has an opposite meaning i.e the foxes are the object and the dogs are the subject
Lišky are the object in Czech too. The sentence is supposed to show you how variable/crazy the Czech word order can be. I suggest you look up the declension tables for those two words and/or perhaps read the tips and notes sections, to unconfuse yourself :)
psi cannot be the object i.e the word ends in "i" so the word is in Nominative plural and it cannot be the object. Am i right?
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I understand the crazy order in Czech, based on the declinations. But duolingo counted right "Lišku ten pes vidi" but not "Lisku ti psi hledají".
Neither is particularly natural, but here it is bordering the limit of reasonability, in my opinion. Both strongly emphasizes the verb. In "Lišku ten pes vidi." it was about a particular "the fox" here it is about foxes in general. So the meaning of your suggestion is "The dogs ARE looking for the fox." or "The dogs are LOOKING for the fox."
But we might accept it.
I added have it, it is not really something likely to be used and is strange by default, but in a limited corner case it might be possible.