"She was surprised that you did not know about it."
Translation:Byla překvapená, že o tom nevíte.
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"Byla překvapená, že jsi o tom nevěděl" - why is this translation wrong? And how would you otherwise translate this sentence?
We would translate it exactly as shown above. Czech does not use English tense agreement in reported speech. We do not shift the reported speech into past when it was originally said in present.
Or do you mean how would we translate your sentence into English? "She was surprised that you had not known about it."
Maybe this falls under the comment about tense agreement, but wouldn't a more accurate English translation be "She was surprised that you do not know about it."? When I see "...did not know about it." I translated the Czech into past tense as well "...že jsi o tom nevěděl." but that was counted as incorrect. Would you always use present tense in in this case?
Even if we do end up accepting the Czech translation with the past tense, calling it "more accurate" would be wishful thinking. It is only more "literal", and it may be more limited. I would suggest you learn to handle the basic case of English backshift vs. Czech no-shift in reported speech, and only then try to look for the edge cases that may provide an excuse for doing the literal translations.
Thanks, that makes sense. I'm not a linguist, but I'm trying to understand the best (and most accurate) translation. To me, saying "...you did not know about it" implies that you did not know about it then, but you know about it now. Saying "...you do not know about it." implies you have never known about it, and continue to not know about it now. Does the Czech translation include this distinction?