- Forum >
- Topic: Czech >
- "Dnes na ni nemáme čekat."
19 Comments
416
Could somebody please explain, why "We do not have to wait for her today" is not accepted. I do not see much of a difference between this sentence and the proposal "We are not supposed to wait for her today".
have to is basically the same as must, so a bit different meaning from be supposed to.
"We are not supposed to" gives the impression that someone told us not to. Is this the same impression that you get from "nemam"?
From my earlier comment: The construction mít-plus-infinitive generally translates as "to be supposed to" or "to be meant to." But since your question is a little nuanced, one of the Czech natives on the team may have something to add.
'we are not expected to wait for her today' is not accepted. I was just experimenting. It seems to me we are in the realm of social expectations, even ethics. In another language 'be expected' might be used. 'Not supposed' can mean 'forbidden'. But in English 'to be supposed' isn't always used as a social expectation, rather as a possibility, eg 'What was I supposed to do?'.
When someone asks,'What do I do?', they can mean 'What should I do?'.
The translation "we aren't to wait for her today" does not sound natural in English. A natural translation would be "we should not wait for her today", but this translation is not accepted. Why is that?
We should not.... would be Neměli bychom na ni .....
the sentence here is 'we are not supposed to', and that can translate to 'we are not to wait...'
The construction mít-plus-infinitive generally translates as "to be supposed to" or "to be meant to." They have a somewhat different meaning than "to need to." Translations using "need" are not accepted, because that is closer to the verb potřebovat.
have to = must
it is not a good translation for the Czech modal mít + infinitive. The similarity is misleading. The Czeech verb mesns to be supposed do, should.
I put in "Nemáme na ji čekat dnes", why is it not accepted? Is it because of the "ji"? If so, when to use "ji" and when to use "ni"? Could someone explain?
