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- "They do not teach us this wo…
"They do not teach us this word in school!"
Translation:Ve škole nás tohle slovo neučí!
15 Comments
it is on the accepted list, even if pretty marginal. sounds like the topic is the things that the school is not teaching you (instead of this word).
That word order is quite tortured. Here are some of the many accepted versions:
- Ve škole nás tohle slovo neučí.
- Tohle slovo nás ve škole neučí.
- (Oni) Nás ve škole tohle slovo neučí.
- Oni nás tohle slovo ve škole neučí.
- Tohle slovo nás neučí ve škole.
- Ve škole nás neučí tohle slovo.
The last two examples are already marginal and need really specific contexts and/or intonation to work.
Don't forget that the beginning of the sentence is the topic - what we're talking about, what is known - for example "as for this word...", "as for the school...", "as for us..." - Your word order is trying to start with "as for not teaching..." (starting with verbs is more typical for questions, although not exclusively.) ... And the end of the sentence is the focus - the new information, the core of what we're saying - negative sentences often place the verb there to stress the negation. You can ask "as opposed to what?" - they don't teach it, as opposed to teaching it. "Tohle slovo nás neučí ve škole." means they teach us this word somewhere else (as opposed to at school). Your word order is kind of trying to say "they teach us that word, as opposed to this one." (Ve škole nás neučí tohle slovo, učí nás jiné.)
218
This is a great post. I feel like I am finally getting a handle on how to think about Czech word order. Thank you.
The second position for "nás". It should be in the second position or in the strong (first or final) position.
- 344
(Czech learner here... ) I think it's because "ve škole" + "tohle slovo" are the KNOWN things they are discussing.
"nás neučí" is new information, and so it goes at the end. Note: "neučí nás" sounds weird because it emphasizes "nás".
This is stuff I've learned from my Czech friends. It has taken me a while to fully understand it. :-)
So nás should be earlier than neučí? Is that the reason why neučí nás tohle slovo ve škole is wrong?
No.
Neučí nás tohle slovo škole. is a grammatically correct sentence, but not very natural. You are stressing AT SCHOOL so I would assume you are telling that they don't teach you the word at school but somewhere else.
But perhaps it can be added anyway.
I wrote it like that because I interpreted it like, say a dirty word that you don't learn at school or DL :), so I tried to express just that. Anyway, no big deal, it is good to know the right way of translating it
- 365
I try to understand the structure of this sentence. "Nás" and "tohle slovo" are the objects in the accusative, "neučí" is the predicate and the subject (oni/y/a) is not given. Am I right?
