"Those are not pears!"

Translation: To nejsou hrušky!

[jackso.jacksonis]

Why does "to" mean "those"?

[JanLyko]

It does not, "those" = "tamty". However, Czech does not use such a construction ("Tamty nejsou hrušky"). Demonstrative pronoun "to" is used instead.

[I2cGAc67]

From the Tips provided, I thought that "ty" is used for feminine plural nouns, both nominative and accusative, so I do not understand why "to" is correct in this sentence. I thought "pears" is a feminine plural noun in Czech. I would really appreciate it if you could explain.

[BoneheadBass]

Yes, "ty" is indeed used as a modifier for feminine plural nouns in the nominative and accusative cases. In this sentence, "to" does not act as a modifier of the noun, but essentially as the subject of the sentence. "To" is regularly used in constructions like "to je" and "to jsou," where "To je" means "It is / That is" and "To jsou" means "They are / Those are." In these constructions, "to" is always used in the singular whether the verb is "je" or "jsou." It can be confusing at first, but the more you see it, the more sense it will make.

[Soolrak]

Then why does it say those in the English translation? As I2cGAc67 said, I also thought that ty was correct.

[butterfly604479]

Is "To jsou není hrušky" also a reasonable translation?

[BoneheadBass]

No, that wouldn't work. There would be two verbs in the sentence (jsou and není). "Jsou" means "they are," while "není" means "he/she/it is not." And "hrušky" requires "are not."

[butterfly604479]

Okay, good - so in the singular, "to neni hruska", and plural "to nejsou hrusky" (plus diacritics of course), right? Thank you for that.

[BoneheadBass]

Yep!