The first sentence of Milan Kundera's "Žert" is: Tak jsem se po mnoha letech octl zase najednou doma. "octl" looks like a past participle to me, but of which verb? What was he doing after many years, all of a sudden, again, at home? I have looked in all my books and lists and have not found "octl" anywhere. Any help greatly appreciated. cheers, Sonja
the verb (reflexive) i believe is "octnout se" - to find oneself Tak jsem se po mnoha letech octl zase najednou doma. Thus, after many years, I suddenly found myself at home once again.
after i posted, i looked at the two online dictionaries i use the most - not sure about the english versions of some of the expressions (some are dead on though), but they do give a rather good list of situations where the verb is used in czech: http://web.volny.cz/najdito/slovnik/?se ... mit=Hledat http://slovnik.seznam.cz/?q=octnout&lang=cz_en
The verb “octnout se” has a doublet form “ocitnout se”, the latter is possibly more common (and less formal).
Also, is it correct that verbs ending in -nout very often have the past participle ending just in -l? What confused me was that "octl" is so short that I was sure it must be some irregular verb and then searched in the wrong places. (I know this is more a grammar than a vocabulary question now, feel free to move it elsewhere.) Again, děkuju mockrát to all of you. (Ja se řekne česky "to all of you"? ) cheers, Sonja
The verbs ending in “-nout” are either of the model “tisknout” or “minout” (see Wikipedia for the models). The participle of the first model ends in “-l” in literal Czech or in “-nul” in colloquial Czech (often accepted as literal) and the participle of the latter model ends always in “-nul”. to all of you = (vám) všem, každému, všem z vás, každému z vás
octnout se - (past) octl se ocitnout se - (past) ocitl se The second one is much more common, and easier to pronounce. I wonder how would you native english pronounce "octl". Off topic, but it probably must be quite difficult to say world like "plst", "smrk", "srst", "smrt", isn't is?
No. (I'm a native german though, not sure if that makes a difference.) As long as the 'l' or 'r' are syllabic (and I assume it is in octl), it is quite manageable. Compare english "fiddlesticks", where the e is not pronounced and you actually have the cluster "dlst" with a syllabic l. I love how my czech colleagues pronounce "XML" (two syllables) and "HTML" (three) without wasting precious vowels.
No problem: Ks-M-L, H-T-M-L the same way like Germans voice it. The same for PC. :wink: from www.cj.cz o ocitnout se i octnout se, 1. j. ocitnu se i octnu se; příč. ocitl se, ocitnul se i octl se, octnul se ocitnout se - can be pronounced much easier
Běžel jsem před nepřátelí a rychle jsem se snažil skrýt se v uličce. Vůbec jsem ale nevěděl, že tam mě čekali jejích přátelé. Ocitl jsem se tehdy v ještě horší situaci. Z zbláta do louže. There are many words I am sure I pronounce incorrectly. like.....vlhkost...that seems to me really hard srdce was really hard at first, but I think I got it now. I figured out I was pronouncing it like sýr-dce fiddlesticks....true the 'e' is not at all pronounced, but you have to leave a space for the syllable break. Three distinct sounds fi-dl-sticks.. Not sure where the expression comes from. Of course, literal translation could be 'the bow for a violin', but it's not used that way, it's an old expression meaning something like 'Aw shux', 'shoot', 'daggone it'