"Zatímco František spí, jeho manželka pláče."

Translation: While František is sleeping, his wife is crying.

[TylerHanak]

Wow, Frantisek sounds like a jerk. Anyone else find this to be a little dark? In an earlier exercise we did learn that "Frantisek is marrying her, but he does not love her".

In all seriousness though, I love learning Czech. Thank you for all the hard work.

[petic]

Give the poor guy a break. He may be bedridden with a serious disease while his wife is sitting at the bedpost crying :(

[vcllist]

At least he doesn't eat cats and dogs.

[Ollyfer]

That's why I would like to have more context, although I am aware that from this point, we might not be sufficiently erudite in this language to be given broader context in prosaic shape.

[Chris593769]

Is “ while František is sleeping, his wife cries” acceptable? Or even “while František sleeps, his wife cries”?

[VladaFu]

yes

[Chris593769]

Thanks. Sometimes the construction in Czech is very particular so I find it hard sometimes to equate to English speech. (I am English).
I also get confused by když and kdežto and don’t really see any difference between them. I always seem to choose the wrong one!

[VladaFu]

These two are very different. Když means when, kdežto means whereas.

[Chris593769]

Thank you so much. I WILL learn Czech! I have only been trying for 20years and this is my best try yet. I know more than I thought I did, but the nuances are coming now. Moje vznášedlo je plné úhořů.

[AgnusOinas]

Moje vznášedlo je plné úhořů. :D
Referring to the same Monty Python sketch, how about: Tuto desku si nekoupím, je poškrábaná! (I will not buy this record, it is scratched!) which then gets corrected to Tuto trafiku si nekoupím, je poškrábaná!

[BrianSille2]

"While Frantisek is asleep his wife is crying" has just been rejected from me. Tha answer above suggests that it should be accepted. I have reported, but am I missing something?

[AgnusOinas]

Combinations with "asleep" have been missing from the accepted translations, I have added them now. Thanks for your report.

[BrianSille2]

Thank you

[deactivated user]

Can't "Whilst Frantisek is sleeping, his spouse is crying" be considered correct, although it surely sounds literary?

[VladaFu]

"Whilst" is correct and accepted, but "spouse" is not accepted for manželka and I will add it. I hope it shows the importance of showing the complete sentence, as you did.

You should also use "My answer should have been accepted", that is the primary way to report missing stuff. We had no report containing "spouse" at all.

[deactivated user]

Děkuji Vám hodně! And I thought I had pushed that button before submitting my question, but apparently I did not. I surely will next time!

[AgnusOinas]

Also note that while "manželka" and "jeho žena" are equivalent to "his wife", there's also a literary, high register word for "spouse" in Czech: choť

It works in both genders (just like spouse does), i.e. "ten choť" as well as "ta choť"