"Ten pes vidí žrádlo."
Translation:The dog sees the food.
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It is so frustrating for a Pole to be struggling with English when learning Czech. Why on Earth "The dog sees A food" is wrong?
In that context "food" is uncountable, so you cannot say "a food". BTW, don't regard this as a struggle, but rather a chance to practice two languages simultaneously. ;)
Yea, you just have to check both languages but the bonus is that you can improve both at the same time.
The same reason the structure "Why that is wrong?" is wrong. English just does not work like that. Maybe persuade Duolingo to allow the creation of Czech for Polish speakers.
Vlad, Because the word "food" is uncountable, so you don't want to use the article "a" in front of it.
I find learning Czech from English very interesting and funny. And being a Pole makes it easier and more difficult at the same time. Easier because I can guess a lot of meanings by analogy, more difficult because there are things that are different between our two languages and I guess for those it might be better not to have the bias just learn by heart rather than guessing.
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I fully agree with the statement that learning Czech from English is a lot of fun, as well as with the sentiment that being a Pole makes learning Czech both easier and more difficult at the same time :)
Just like you said, I can guess quite a lot by analogy, and I can understand the gist of many things which are written or said, but then... there are all those "false friends" between our languages which complicate things in the most funny and unexpected ways from time to time ;)
Czech and Polish words may look almost identical sometimes, yet their meaning might be anything from slightly different, similar but used in another context, or even completely different.
For example in this sentence discussed here - I was genuinely surprised that there is no "stream" among the words to choose from, because the Czech word "žrádlo" looks very similar to the Polish word "źródło" meaning "a stream" or figuratively "a source" ;)
But the fun part of learning Czech for me is to treat those kind of situations as a great opportunity to find some common "missing link" between our languages, either by trying to guess the original Slavic root of both words, or by finding another word in Polish, which might be closer in both sound/look AND meaning to the Czech one.
So at first I just laughed at my "The dog sees a stream" mistake, but then I also searched my "mental data base" or my "inner dictionary" and I thought:
Ok, let's see... food in Polish is "jedzenie" and the verb "to eat" is "jeść" so, not similar to the Czech "žrádlo" at all. (But as I now see in sanguii's answer below, there is another Czech word for food -"jídlo" which IS similar to the Polish word "jedzenie", and even more to the old-fashioned Polish "jadło" with the same meaning).
BUT we also have a colloquial (perhaps also still regional) Polish word "żarcie" and the verb "żreć" - to eat, although in my opinion they may sound rather... harsh and abrupt or even crude and rude sometimes, especially if used about people and not animals - unless perhaps if used affectionately or jokingly by family and friends. (Which, interestingly enough, is similar to how "žrádlo" is used in Czech, as explained by endless_sleeper in one of the comments below). So we may say "żarcie dla psów" - "food for dogs" in Polish, but we would rarely use it about the food eaten by humans - at least it's not the norm in the official/formal language. And even the animal food in Polish is generally called "karma", or "pokarm", not "żarcie", because the latter is just informal/colloquial, like I said.
We also have the noun "żer" and the verb "żerować" in Polish, which means "to forage" and is used about the animals searching for food, so you can often hear it in documentaries, for example on the Animal Planet channel and the like ;)
As a Pole, I really like this whole "guessing game" while learning Czech - it's like an intricate linguistic puzzle for me, where every little piece can provide some hint, which MIGHT be helpful, but can also be misleading... ;)
Having said that - in my opinion, a possible future course "Czech from Polish" would be a great addition to Duolingo too, especially for those of my fellow Polish learners of Czech who still struggle with English. But the new courses can no longer be prepared by the groups of enthusiastic, bilingual volunteers, and they will only be created and updated by professionals hired by Duo from now on (as far as I know). So we might wait for a looong time before that happens, because the most popular courses will always be prioritised, I guess. But who knows...
"źródło" is "zřídlo" in Czech, a source of (mineral) water or figuratively a source in general
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Thank you for your answer!
Yes, by translating the Polish word "źródło" as "a stream" I actually meant "a spring", so a source of mineral water (as you said) or metaphorically a source in general - more than "a stream" in all its length.
The latter would be more often called "strumień"/"strumyk" or sometimes "potok"/"potoczek".
But now I'll never confuse the words "žrádlo" and "zřídlo" in Czech again :)
Jídlo is the regular way to say food. Žrádlo is very informal and may even be derogatory, which is why it's used for animal food here.
Žrádlo is not really derogatory or informal when used for animal food. Just don't use it for food intended for human consumption. The same applies for verbs: žrát vs jíst. It's similar to German fressen vs essen.
Isn't zradlo something that animals eat and food something that people eat????
No, cat food or dog food is still food. Please limit the number of questionmarks you use here. It can look quite rude.
I guess "the dog sees the food" and "the dog sees food" would be indistinguishable (except from context) in Czech?
I think you can distinguish those two using "to žrádlo" in the first sentence.
It is usually quite clear from the context. But yes, in the very unlikely possibility of any confusion we can add the demonstrative.
Why is "The dog sees food" incorrect? Is OK in English, and with no articles in Slav, I do not get it.
It should be correct. From one of VladaFu's answers it sounds like it is accepted. Report it, it may help.