"They got married very young."

Translation: Brali se velmi mladí.

[ken55414]

I need a refresher on the difference between "se" and "si" in this case. Do you use "se" when you marry each other and "si" when you marry an identified other person (Tom or Sofia)?

[BoneheadBass]

Brát se is used in the plural when you're speaking about people getting married to each other. You would use brát si when speaking about someone who is marrying someone else.

[2200Lucia60]

1. "Velmi mladí se brali" is an acceptable alternative wordorder, isn't it? 2. Could"velmi" get replaced by "hodně" or with "moc" here? Thanks to the contributors ( I cannot stop repeating it )!!

[BoneheadBass]

For your second question, yes, those are also accepted. Your first question would be better addressed by one of the Czech natives on the team; that word order is not currently accepted.

[2200Lucia60]

Thanks Bonehead Bass. What an interesting language course.. it is a quite tough one, but I don't care. We always get the necessary help.

[VladaFu]

1. The word order is strange. It is theoretically possible with some very special and strong intonation that extremely emphasizes "velmi mladí". With normal intonation it sounds like you are informing that some people known as "velmi mladí" got married.

[2200Lucia60]

I understand. Thanks Vlada.

[Stephan881810]

Why is "oni brali se velmi mladi" wrong?

[VladaFu]

second position rule for se

[svrsheque]

https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/31466920

[stLOir]

Why is it here bral, but in the other examples vzal? Guess the first is imperfective and the other one perfective but I do not understand why this is the case...

[AgnusOinas]

You're right, "bral" is imperfective and "vzal" perfective. It just doesn't make a difference in this context. You could say that "vzal" refers to the moment of putting on rings, while "bral" refers to the whole process and ceremony, but they are simply interchangeable in this particular meaning of getting married.

It's different when they're used in their regular meaning "to take":

• Ráno si vzal ze stolu chléb. - He took bread from the table in the morning, only once, that particular morning.
• Ráno si bral ze stolu chléb. - He did it every morning.

That's what those sentences mean on their own without any further specification - the perfective one refers to a completed one-off action, and the imperfective one to something repeated. BUT we can use both of them differently:

• Každé ráno si vzal ze stolu chléb.

Every morning, he did that one-off, completed (perfective) action. It sounds different and the feeling is different than if "bral" was used here, but the resulting reality is the same.

• Když si bral chléb ze stolu, náhle uviděl Kateřinu. - When he was taking bread from the table, he suddenly saw Kateřina.

Now he only took bread once (as opposed to the repeated "Ráno si bral ze stolu chléb"), but we want the imperfective verb so that it's described as an on-going action, a frame within which something else happened - something one-off and perfective (uviděl Kateřinu).

Coming back to "getting married", the aspects are no longer interchangeable when we put the marriage against another verb:

• Když si bral Kateřinu, byl šťastný. - When he was getting married to Kateřina, he was happy. -i.e. during the ceremony of marriage/wedding, we need the imperfective "bral"
• Když si vzal Kateřinu, byl smutný. - When he got married to Kateřina, he was sad. -i.e. after getting married, the action of getting married was completed, so we need the perfective "vzal"

All in all - only one verbal aspect is possible in most situations to express what you want, but there are overlaps and gray areas where both can be used.

[stLOir]

Thank you, it helped a lot!