"Musíš se dívat vlastníma očima!"

Translation: You must look with your own eyes!

[raywalsh]

'look' sounds strange. I believe the idiom is to 'see' with your own eyes

[VladaFu]

See is vidět, look is dívat se. Maybe see is an idiom, but it is not a correct translation of the Czech sentence. You can look and still see nothing (dívat se a stejně nic nevidět).

"vidět na vlastní oči" - "see with your own eyes" is also an idiom in Czech. But it simply means something else.

[horsthartm2]

Sorry to tell you, but best would be "watch" or "look" (implies neuronal feedback). Eyes may follow something, even might get neuronal input, but they do not reflect.

[rejlmen]

Dalo by se použít ´watch´ místo ´look´? Dík.

[VladaFu]

Asi ano (uznáváme to), ale mnohem lepší je look. https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=look+with+your+own+eyes%2Cwatch+with+your+own+eyes&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Clook%20with%20your%20own%20eyes%3B%2Cc0

[raywalsh]

I don't know how to interpret those charts, but when I entered 'see with your own eyes' compared to look, it found many more instances. Anyway, surely word-for-word translation is often inaccurate and not really the goal here. Otherwise wouldn't you have to accept translations like 'there are to me 40 years' when the sense is "I am forty years old"?

[VladaFu]

The graph is an answer to a different question (watch vs. look) asked by someone else (and in a different language).

[TaNlGA]

Chci se zeptat, zda je překlad: You have to look....špatný?

[VladaFu]

ne

[rosemarie45933]

Look vs. see???? they are very similar in English but in Czech I can see the difference

[VladaFu]

What exactly is your question? They are certainly not the same in English. You can see someone but you cannot look them. You can look at them and still you may not see them.

[Pollyhs]

You must look with your own eyes. makes no sense because... How else can you look.. if not with your own eyes. (You have to see it with your own eyes ) means that " I can't describe it to you it is unbelievable you have to see it yourself!! " So if 'You have to see it yourself 'is not acceptable , then maybe a fellow English speaker can give me a situation in which I would use that 'must' expression, I can't think of any. Thanks
Although you have to look with your own eyes. is acceptable. you have to see it with your own eyes is better.

[VladaFu]

No, the Czech sentence really says what the English "look" does. It does NOT mean that you have to see it with you own eyes because I cannot describe it. It is just a wrong translation.

It is just a poetic sentence, that's all. It can be used in the context of visual arts, e.g., by Gilbert Stuart http://www.arkellmuseum.org/content/look-your-own-eyes-landscapes-portraits-and-pastimes-american-paintings

[Pollyhs]

I see. I understand now. Thanks.

[Tom307502]

Why do we need the "a" on the end of vlastnim? Is it due to the gender of "oko" (which I believe is neuter)?

[Leo970566]

oko uses the Dual when used in instrumental. It then has the ending -ima instead of -y. And the connected adjectives do so as well, which is why it is "vlastníma" instead of "vlastními".

[Juggler69]

Thank you!

I was also confused by this as "vlastníma" does not appear in the table of adjective declensions that I have.