"No, Žofie was worse at it."
Translation:Ne, Žofie to uměla hůř.
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Does "Ne, Žofie uměla to hůř" sound ok for native speakers? Or did i forget some rules on the word order?
We do not stress to here and therefore we need it in an unstressed position in the sentence where we also put clitics. However, to can also be stressed, it is not an obligatory clitic.
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Thanks. For me both these sentences sound the same - I can't even tell where the stess is, but I compare it to Russian too much, I think)
It is little awkward. Often there are no set rules yet no native speaker would say it.
Sorry for the question, I'm still rather clueless when it comes to Czech grammar.. Why is it huř and not horší?
hůř is an adverb (how? - belongs to a verb)
horší is an adjective (what kind of? - belongs to noun or pronoun)
That is a strange order. Try "Ne, Žofie v tom byla horší.". "v tom" is not a strict clitic, but wants to be in the second position here.
I learned umět as to know how to...not to be worse at something. Is there a specific time to use it as to be worse at something? Thanks.
"uměla to hůř" basically means "she knew it worse", in the sense of some ability to do or perform something, not in the sense of some knowledge
Even if you translate "umět" as "to know how to", the translation would be something like "No, Žofie didn't kow worse how to (do) that", which in better English is as given. "worse" is "hůř".
No, accepting that would be very confusing even though you could invent some very artifficial context where it could make some sense.
Thanks for clarifying. I'm still not familiar with the Czech word order and haven't been able to develop a "feel" for it yet.
Our verb book says "umět" means "to know how to" but the given translation of this sentence suggests it is more akin to "to do" in the sense of carrying out an activity or skill. "I'm doing my Czech (study)." What do the moderators think please?
I think Vladafu has partially answered this, sorry I missed the comment first off in the discussion responses.
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Like a number of foreigners learning Czech, I am having trouble with the sound of ř. At the end of this Czech sentence, the word hůř sounds like English whose.
Well... it takes a while to get along well with this letter and its two sounds -- it can be voiced (Dvořák, řeka, čtyři), or voiceless (tři, trakař, případ). The difference between the voiced and voiceless variant is the same as between the /s/ sound and the /z/ sound, for example, but they are both spelled as "ř". It's always voiced at the beginning of a word, and always voiceless at the end. If it's in the middle, it depends on what consonants (if any) are next to it.
In "hůř" it's voiceless and thus possibly different from other words with "ř" you've encountered before, which might be confusing you.
The TTS is not so great here at pronouncing it. You may also want to check out some recordings made by native speakers:
https://forvo.com/search/h%C5%AF%C5%99/