"Žofie se zeptala, kde máme koupelnu."
Translation:Žofie asked where our bathroom is.
21 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
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."
It is more natural to ask for koupelna without the possesive. English uses possesives much more.
Why not zofie asked "where is our bathroom"? "Where we have" is definitely not right in English
Because it is a reported question, so you need a different order "... where our bathroom is.".
138
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.
I think I wrote ”Žofie asked where do we have the bathroom”. So the ”do” is extra here?
- 327
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".
Translations that use "a" or "the" also are accepted. We can't tell you why your specific answer was rejected if we don't know exactly what it was. Please always use the Report button when you believe your answer should have been accepted, since we can then (usually) find your answer in the system.
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..
Or i might even say "where our bathroom is located".. sorry accidentally sent this before I could add that
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.
In case you have not figured this out since you posted your comment, users can edit their own comments.