littlewhywhat
How word order implies on the type of sentence in Czech? For example, Mám naději naučit se mluvit česky za rok? I've been told that the word order plays a role here to determine that this is a question. How could I change it to be the declarative sentence (statement)? What are the general strategies to follow when you think about this type of correlation between word order and type of sentence? Thank you in advance!
Aug 23, 2015 1:14 PM
Answers · 4
2
Hi, a good question! I'm curious what other people will answer. :) Since you've not written the subject, the sentence can be both a declarative sentence and a question. However, depending on a context one will be preferable. I'm afraid that's why it was corrected. As you already know, we conjugate verbs in Czech, we can leave out the subject and we still know who are we talking about. Remember that the subject is still in the sentence, it is only hidden. You can rewrite the sentence using the subject, too. (Já) mám naději naučit se mluvit česky za rok. Mám (já) naději naučit se mluvit česky za rok? Now it would be clear. When the pronoun is not there, you can find out the meaning either from intonation (when spoken) or from context. In your case, the context played a role. "Mám (já) naději naučit se mluvit česky za rok?" You are asking for people's opinions. You don't need much context. "(Já) mám naději naučit se mluvit česky za rok." For a declarative sentence, on the other hand, the context is important. You're talking about hope that you'll learn something in a year and we would be immediately curious what is it. Learning is never easy, whatever it is. Have you bought a book, signed up for a language course, started studying more often, etc.? Generally, the sentence structure is similar to English one. For declarative sentences "subject-verb-object", for questions "verb-subject-object". There are some verb structures - verbs with reflexive pronouns, past tense, conditionals - where you'll have to learn the correct placement within a sentence, but you'll get to that later. For present tense remember that the reflexive pronoun is always second in a sentence. - Já si čtu. Čtu si.=I read (for myself). One last thing: The most important information in a sentence comes "LAST". It is the same in declarative sentences as well as in questions. Mám naději naučit se mluvit česky za rok? Mám naději naučit se za rok mluvit česky?
August 24, 2015
Já jsem češka, ale kdybych se měla svůj jazyk učit, jako se třeba učím angličtinu, tak bych to nezvládla, protože pro jedno anglické lovo existuje nespočet českých. Takže upřímně pochybuji :)
February 2, 2016
Still haven’t found your answers?
Write down your questions and let the native speakers help you!