"Mezinárodním vlakem přijelo osmdesát německých turistů."
Translation:Eighty German tourists arrived on the international train.
12 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
528
A good translation into English here is "'by", not "on" or "with".
Furthermore, "by international train" is superior to "by an" or "by the".
- 1758
This, in English the "instrumental" is formed for travelling with "by" e.g. I arrived by bus, by long-distance train, by airplane, etc. No articles are needed.
On the other hand, I suppose "leaving ON A jet plane" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leaving_on_a_Jet_Plane is correct as well.
what about "the international train arrived with eighty german tourists", would one need to explicitly say "with"?
I am not sure I understand the question. Yes, in the English sentence you would have to say WITH or supply some other description "bringing, carrying...". But that has little to do with the Czech sentence
The answer I got was "*80 German tourists arrived IN the international train". Wouldn't that necessitate Locative? I translated to WITH also because I saw the "International Train" in Instrumental. It was marked wrong of course. Also, I see "přijelo". Why do we use this and not "prijel". Are we not describing "vlak"? I have a lot of trouble with these when they come out neuter. Please explain.
We are not describing "vlak", the subject are the 80 German tourists. And remember, numbers above five misbehave in the Slavic languages. Even if you'd be talking about trains, you'd say: přijel 1 vlak, přijely 2/3/4 vlaky, přijelo 5/80 vlaků.
And the preferred preposition in the English sentence is ON, but I'm also curious how correct/natural those other two are.
czech grammar question: why "prijelo" and not "prijel" 3rd masc. unless "tourist" is neutral ? thanks
The subject is "osmdesát", the tourists (genitive) are only hanging on the number, as happens with numbers higher than 4. Such numbers then take the verb in singular neuter. Compare:
- Přijel jeden turista.
- Přijeli dva, tři nebo čtyři turisti. (another possible form: "turisté" - more formal)
- Přijelo pět turistů.
I understand the rule of more than 4 but, formally for me the subject is "turist" it is why I was confused ...thanks very much indeed!
In English, the subject is "tourists", indeed. But consider "A group of tourists arrived." - now the subject is "group" -- this is similar to how Czech treats numbers 5+.