"Chlapci jsou teď malí."
Translation:The boys are little now.
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So the singular for boy is Chlapec and why is the plural Chlapci instead of Chlapeci? Dekuji
That's just how it is, there's no specific reason. It's just an irregular plural.
It is quite regular and appears in other languages as well.
The reason may actually come from the Havlík's law. The -i in the plural is an actual -i that caused the yer between p and c to be weak and thus elided. In nominative the final yer was after the c and was elided instead and the yer between p and c was vocalized.
That's the general process for similar words, the word chlapec may have emerged after this process finished, but was created regularly, similar to other words ending -ec, gen. sg. -ce, nom. pl. -ci.
Compare свѧтьць (svętĭcĭ) -> světec / světci.
Could someone help me me as I'm not understanding this one_ I guess it's 4th Case, "who, what // koho, co" and its masculine animate, mužský životný and then plural, jsou, _ but that means it should then be Chalpc_e?
It is the nominative plural form of the masculine animate noun chapec. You can see the full declension table forchlapec here: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/chlapec#Declension.
Thank you, how do you decide that it's the 1st Case, nominative..when you make the sentence.. Is it because its a statement?
Thank you very much, though I'm still not there yet.. why could it not be acusative, chlapce are directly the objects, or not? _ I can't see the subtlety between choosing those two cases_ or is it just something else entirely..?
This sentence contains four parts: Subject (the boys), verb (are), adjective that modifies the subject (little), and adverb (now). The subject of a sentence is always in the nominative case. And, in a language with multiple inflected cases, like Czech, an adjective that modifies the subject must also take a nominative form.
Chlapci jsou teď malí. those boys are now small Is it context that makes "those" wrong?
Small is OK, those is not OK. Those is really explicitly pinting somewhere, referencing something. We would use "ti chlapci" or "tamti chlapci" for that.
Thanks. I have the feeling "these those the a" is going to be difficult for me. I'll keep learning!
- this - "tento" (more formal), "tenhle" (less formal)
- that - "ten"
- the - often not needed, otherwise "ten"
- a - usually nothing
You just need to modify "ten" (and "tento", "tenhle") according to gender and number ("ta", "to", "ti" etc.).
And of course, on the English side, "those" and "these" are just plural versions of "that" and "this" respectively.
"However" does not mean "teď". Your sentence would translate as "Chlapci jsou však malí."
Is the Ch is Chlapci pronounced more like a K? It seemed like the C was silent previously but I hear it in this pronunciation
The "c" cannot be silent in "ch", because there is no "c" in it.
- the letter "c" is pronounced /ts/ (as one sound), similar to English cats
- the letter "ch" is pronounced as in Scottish "loch" or German "Bach". It does not sound as an "h" and definitely not as a "k" either.
It is also pronounced practically the same everywhere -- in "chlapec" as well as in every other word. You may need to get your ears/brain used to it if you haven't learned a language that has it and until you do, it's natural that you may think you hear it differently in different places.