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- "It is a young horse."
"It is a young horse."
Translation:Je to mladý kůň.
16 Comments
koně can be singular accusative case or plural nominative case
kůň is singular nominative case
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"Kůň" is used often when we want to say a horse and as you wrote it's the masculine animate. If you want to say a feminine horse then it's "kobyla".
Since "is" in czech normally also includes I/you/he/she it is usually not needed. Any explanation to why it is needed in this case?
Here it is the common "je to/to je" construction, here the to is used for all genders and persons and numbers.
"Je mladý kůň." would either mean "There is a young horse." or "He is a young horse." about some person from the previous sentence.
I always write "ten" instead of "to", but it is not accepted. Can someone help me to understand why do we use "to" even if the word is masculine?
In my head, the word order "Je to" vs. "To je" makes is more likely to be a question when "je" comes first. Is the word order really completely irrelevant for this distinction? Not even 51%/49%?
It isn't irelevant.
To je kůň. You point to some object and point out that it is a horse.
To je mladý kůň. You comw to a horse and point out that ot is a young horse.
Je to ... is normally used when continuing a conversation. You speak about a horse and during the conversation you say:
Je to mladý kůň.
You say that the horse you are speaking about is a young horse.
In other words, the difference is similar (but not exactly the same) to:
- It's a horse - Je to kůň.
- That's a horse - To je kůň.
Whether it's a question is irrelevant. Questions are marked by a rising intonation in speech and a question mark in writing. If a question contains another verb (other than this "to je/je to" construction), the verb tends to come first in questions.
