- Forum >
- Topic: Czech >
- "V březnu jedeme domů."
12 Comments
499
My translation was "We go home in March". It was marked incorrect. I have already translated countless Czech sentences in these modules without the "is ing" or "are ing", but simply using the infinitive of the verb. The reason I believe that this type of translation is unacceptable is because of the use of perfective in Czech. Without the "ing" this COULD be a completed act(dokonavé sloveso). In English, we often say "We go home in March" because we don't use perfective verbs. To be concise in speech and writing, we often leave the "ing" off. I realize that to make the use of the infinitive in these types of sentences acceptable, a tremendous amount of work would have to be done. Can someone explain why this was not acceptable in the first place, and the reasoning behind it?
- 269
I think that while most Czech imperfective verbs can describe a single action or a repeated action, the Czech imperfective verbs of motion are more specific and there are verbs for one-time motion and verbs for repeated motion.
jedeme = we are going (one time)
jezdíme = we go (regularly or repeatedly)
Other pairs are jít/chodit, běžet/běhat.
- 579
I could imagine some reasons, but they are speculative, as I am neither a Czech nor an English native speaker. 1. Maybe the Czech developers of the course have a strong inclination to use an imperfective verb in most cases in the present tense and feel the need to translate this with the Present Continuous, as this gives the most imperfective "feel". 2. If I am right, in the beginning of the course most verbs are imperfective (by now I have progressed to "Past 2"). 3. Maybe the Czech team wants to emphasize the existence of the "aspect" right from the beginning of the course by using a strict difference between Present Simple and Present Continuous in the translations. In Dutch (my native language) there isn't such a strict difference between perfective and imperfective verb tenses. They do exist, but in most cases they are interchangeable.
- 499
Great answer and it confirms what I was thinking. OK all you native English speakers, don’t forget to add “ing” in all imperfective sentences in this course!
Maybe that is because "We go home in March" would mean that every March you go home. But this sentence alone really means just that we are going home in March. It's like using present continuous to express future in English.
"We go home in March" suggests to me that we do this every March. One often hears it used to suggest a single future action but this is not good English.
Can someone explain to me which case to use with months, seasons, days of week and time? Thanks
V lednu = 6. noun case (Same for all other months)
Na jaře (6.), V létě (6.), Na podzim (6.), V zimě (6.)
V pondělí, V úterý, Ve středu, ve čtvrtek, v pátek.. everything is 6. noun case.
V 5 hodin a 30 minut (6.), V 9:30 (6. probably but you don't need to know it as you read it just as "v devět třicet")
EDIT: 6. noun case is "locative" or "lokál" in Czech.
