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- "To jsou velké mašiny."
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The sentence is literally "Those are big machines." Your suggested sentence would be slightly different -- Ty mašiny jsou velké.
I continuously confuse these/those/the in connection with to/ty/ti... is there a rule (of thumb) or a hint how to remember correctly?
A quick way... When you see -to or -hle attached to a demonstrative (ten, ta, to, ty, ti) you can pretty much count on its meaning being "this" or "these." Without the suffix, the translation is generally "that" or "those."
They are two different sentence constructions, both in Czech and in English, and the course consistently distinguishes between the two. See the earlier comments about this.
I remember you promissed to get rid of this word "mašiny" in the renewed course. Not that it bothers me or something, I am just saying. By the way - my Czech friend told me he would never use this word when referring to a mechanical device. He would only use it in order to describe someone who is so strong, powerful and durable he is "(like) a machine".
Using it to mean that someoone is strong/powerful/durable is weird. The closest usage I can think of is "Maká jako mašina" - "He works like a machine", to describe someone working with lots of endurance and power, but even that is not common. I can imagine someone who goes to the gym daily might say this about himself. Also note it has to be combined with the slang verb "makat", which already suggests hard work.
I would personally never (or rarely) use the word "mašina", it sounds dumb and machistic to me. Some Czechs do use it, however, and most frequently it refers to a motorcycle, just like in the song "Holky a mašiny" that VladaFu mentioned.
Thank you. I must have had a mild amnesia. Of course my friend told me about this second, "motorcycle" use too. But the point was - he would never use "mašina" as an equivalent to "stroj".
It is colloquial, but the tradition is long. This is from the 40s: https://bara.ujc.cas.cz/psjc/search.php?hledej=Hledej&heslo=mašina This from the 60s: https://bara.ujc.cas.cz/ssjc/search.php?hledej=Hledej&heslo=mašina They do say poněk. zast. and ob. so it is probably not suitable for the course, but it is here now and the course is frozen. The main reason it is here is the similarity with the English word.
Mašinka for a hair cutting machine is the most common spoken word for the appliance. "Vemte to na 3 mm mašinkou."
And, of course, the famous https://www.csfd.cz/film/5104-frigo-na-masine
There has been no new course released. There is no timetable for its release either.
What your friend says is very strange. I would never use this word for a person. It is commonly used for vehicles. Google "holky a mašiny".
"Those are the big machines" needs to be followed by something to justify the definite article, something like "Those are the big machines I told you about" - or such a followup is implied. Here the definite article also needs to be expressed in Czech - by a demonstrative. The Czech equivalent would be "To jsou ty velké mašiny" (...o kterých jsem ti říkal).
"They are big machines" is definitely accepted. You must have made another mistake. If you had used the report button, we could see what you actually wrote. ;)
No, definitely not, it's a different sentence ("Ty stroje jsou velké.")¨
Why don't you read the discussion before posting? Your suggestion has already been rejected repeatedly.
I was getting marked wrong for "Those machines are big". Took me a few tries to remember to phrase it how they wanted.
Well, you're supposed to learn what the sentence means and how it works.
- Those are big machines. = To jsou velké mašiny.
- Those machines are big. = Ty mašiny jsou velké. OR: Tamty mašiny jsou velké.
They are different sentences, used in different contexts. It's not just about phrasing anything the way anyone wants.
What's the difference? Those sentences are absolutely equivalent in English. Given that that's the language we're translating into with this excercise I don't see why we should be marked down for picking one equivalent translation over another.
I am native AmE. Those sentences may ultimately make a very similar point, but they use different grammar to do it. They are not, in either language, "absolutely equivalent," and the course very consistently distinguishes between the two constructions. In my view, it is in our interest, as learners of either language, to get our heads around this. :-)
