"Bereme jim děti, aby sem už nechodili."
Translation:We take away their children so that they wouldn't come here anymore.
20 Comments
The suggested solution in English is grammatically incorrect. It should be:
We take away their children so that they DON'T come here any more, or more idiomatically (since this is in habitual aspect with the present simple) "so that they stop coming here".
If it was in the past tense, it would be: We TOOK away their children so that they wouldn't come here any more
It's in the past conditional. The tenses in the English translation do not agree
It is the subjunctive mood. This is not a conditional sentence, there is no if here.
I agree that the conditional shouldn't be used, but in the English translation that is shown, the tense is the past conditional. It is incorrect.
I don't think this is a subjunctive sentence-- that's why it sounds wrong. It's about cause and effect. Subjunctive would be something like "I wish they wouldn't come here anymore," no? In any case, i agree that this sounds awkward and ungrammatical to any native English speaker, so at the very least it doesn't reflect practical usage. Plus it's sadly topical to US politics rather than Czech.
Well, no one is forcing you ¯_(ツ)_/¯
And personally, I don't find the sentence ridiculous at all. It's rather heartbreaking.
Seems like a very poor sentence to translate. First one that I don't like at all.
I have to admit that this sentence totally stumped me. After puzzling over it a bit, it occurred to me that it makes sense in the context of Trump's border-wall child separation policy. But, at least to me, it seems a bit ambiguous as to who "wouldn't come here anymore" -- the children (less likely from a logical standpoint), or the parents (more likely)? Or, now that I think of it, is it the parents in other migrant families, who are supposed to be dissuaded from going to the US because they see a risk that they will lose their children? Maybe for teaching purposes, it doesn't matter, but... GRRR, anyway.
90
This sentence didn't make sense to me until I read the comments. Heartbreaking :'(
- 90
As for the English grammar part, I think a correct version is: We take away their children so that they won't come here anymore. Or with subjunctive: We take away their children in order that they not come here anymore. (I personally tend to avoid subjunctive.)
The sentence "We take them their children so that they will not come here anymore" is not possible?
On the English side, to my AmE ear, your sentence suggests that "we" have previously taken "their" children away, and now we are returning the children to them, so that an unspecified "they" -- the parents? the children? -- will no longer come here. I'm having a little trouble with the logic of that one. :-) But on the Czech side, maybe one of the Czech natives on the team will drop in to explain the grammar.
The "them" shouldn't be there. "Take" when it means "take away" as opposed to "bring" doesn't take an indirect object like it does in Czech.
Bad czech translation. It should be something such: Bereme jejich děti VEN, aby sem už nechodili.
