"Žofie se zeptala, kde máme koupelnu."
Translation:Žofie asked where our bathroom is.
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There is an exception to the normal English sequence of tenses for expressing a persistent fact. If the bathroom were portable, then it would indeed be "Zofie asked where we had our bathroom."
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I can't imagine this English sentence without hearing some sort of international accent. Is this a typically idiomatic Czech expression?
How would you then say Zofie asked where we had our bathroom. ? would that be "Žofie se zeptala, kde meli koupelnu. ? bearing in mind that reported speech is written in the tense before the tense used in die direct speech so then Zofie: ' Where do you have your batheroom? We would say Zofie asked where we had our bathroom. So How do you say that in Czech if "Žofie se zeptala, kde máme koupelnu. is not translated using ... had ... ?
It would be: Žofie se zeptala, kde jsme měli koupelnu. (We used to have it there, but we no longer have.)
English uses backshift in reported speech tense agreement, but Czech does not. However, it is strange to consider your "Žofie asked where we had our bathroom." this way - i.e. that she actually asked "Where do you have your bathroom.". The bathroom usually stays at one place for a long time so I understand your question in the way that she asked "Where did you have...".
I might be wrong i some English points. However, "Žofie se zeptala, kde jsme měli koupelnu." is definitely in the past.
I've stumbled over this translation several times, and I agree with the criticism of this sentence. The English version is very awkward; no one would say "where we have." This might be a literal translation of the Czech "mame" but is a poor translation nonetheless. A closer English translation would be something like this: Zofie asked where our bathroom was located, or Zofie asked where she could find our bathroom.
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Yes, in English "do" is not necessary when it's a reported question. Like "what bands do you like?" and "he asks what bands you like".
While i like that the translation is more literal/word to word.. the English translation of this sounds very awkward to me.. if i had been able to type the translation as opposed to selecting words, i probably would have written "Žofie asked where our bathroom is".. while i understand this would be translated into Czech differently, i just can't ever see myself saying in English "where we have our bathroom" that construction sounds so unnatural to me..
We do have an agreement that we can choose either an unnatural main translation or a main translation that strays too far from the original. (Unless we just skip the exercise altogether.) Between English and Czech, this happens quite a bit.
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