"Vidíš svůj dům?"

Translation: Do you see your house?

[LoossSS]

If I wanted to translate "do you see my house?" (Like my own house) could this be translated the same way "vidíš svůj dům?" ?
When using svůj as "one's own" how do you know who we are speaking about as it's the same word for everyone ? (Who is owning the thing)

[endless_sleeper]

No, it could not. 'Svůj' always refers to the subject of the sentence. Therefore:

'Do you see your house?' = 'Vidíš svůj dům?'

'Do you see my house?' = 'Vidíš můj dům?'

'Do I see your house?' = 'Vidím tvůj dům?'

'Do I see my house?' = 'Vidím svůj dům?'

It gets slightly complicated in 3rd person (at least on the English side):

'Does he see his (own) house?' = 'Vidí svůj dům?'

'Does he see his (someone else's) house?' = 'Vidí jeho dům?'

[LoossSS]

Thanks a lot. That clarifies it perfectly

[Paul747131]

Good examples! Thanks a lot!

[Travelling_Sebi]

Thanks the Gods I found this explanation. I just lost more than an hour trying to understand the svůj vs můj vs tvůj logic. My head was about to explode. Maybe this explanation should be added to the "tips and notes" page.
It's just that the sentence, "Svůj very loosely corresponds to the English “own” and indicates the possession by the subject of the clause" didn't make sense to me because, to my knowledge, there is no such word in English (but, especially in French for me) like this "Svůj".
Thank you so much E_S :)

[Jay757881]

Wouldn't "Vidíš tvůj dům" be "Do you see your house?"

[endless_sleeper]

Using tvůj is not correct. You have to use svůj - svůj is used to indicate possession by the subject of the clause. Check T&N for possessives.

[2200Lucia60]

This sentence here is intended to be a question. In the listening exercise, I did not understand it was a question. Now, I think that , if it was not a question, the verb should be at the end, being "Svůj dům vidíš". Could you confirm that, endless_sleeper? THX :-)

[kacenka9]

No, it does not. The above order is the most common there is. The one you have is slightly unusual and I would only use it in a situation where I am showing somebody something and they are having hard time locating it. So i ask "Svuj dum vidis' as a kind of a confirmation that he/she indeed sees their house and I am now going to use their house as i point in space and tell them to look left or right or up to whatever of it. I am upfront assuming that they do see their house. If I only wanted to know if they see their house without assumption, the above sentence would be ideal. You can tell it is a question from the intonation.