This language is killing me....but I refuse to give up. Alot of words don't show up in any dictionaries {(http://slovnik.seznam.cz) or (http://www.wordbook.cz) or even my custom Lingea Lexicon translation software that my company paid for.}, but that could be b/c I don't know what form or tense most dictionary words should be in. Anyways here's the sentence below. If someone could translate this for me, I'd greatly appreciate it : "Hodně lidí ví, že třeba takový špekáček zrovna neodpovídá představám lékařů o zdravé výživě" and of course my feeble attempt at translation. (for entertainment value or whatever lol) " a lot of people SOMETHING that for instance they also 'small sausage' just now, no match before growing healthily/nutritiously" ANY help would be nice. Milton
A lot of people know, that - for example - small sausage isn't exactly healthy nourishment by doctor's opinion. "ví" is from "vědět" "they know" = "(oni) ví" or "(oni) vědí" "he/she/it knows" = "(on/ona/ono) ví"
And in the sentence Hodně lidí ví, že... hodně lidí equals oni if i am correct so what would you use in the sentence instead od ví ???
Which is correct? A lot of people know ... A lot of people knows ... I think the second possibility is correct as the subject a lot is in singular (the same is true for the Czech sentence).
damn...you guys are awesome... thanks for responding so quick. so... in this case (the sentence above) .. what does "výživě" mean?
Sorry, not true. "A lot" is used as a quantifier, the same as "many", not a synonym for "a group". The subject is "people".
Yes, but a crowd, a group, a bunch, a gang etc. are not considered quantifiers in the same way that a lot is. Remember that a lot and lots can be used interchangeably, with count and noncount nouns alike, being the same as much (noncount) and many (count). I tried to find a rule on singular and plural verbs with quantifiers, but can't seem to dig one up. Maybe somebody with a more comprehensive grammar will come across one...the rule I'm going to pull out of my butt is: in English, plural verbs for count nouns - A lot of people know this is going to happen. - and singular verbs for noncount nouns - A lot of stuff is going to happen. Didn't somebody say something about English being not as easy as advertised in another thread? At least with Czech you know from the start you're going to have an uphill battle learning it...
Thanks for your explanation. It seems that the Czech grammar is more formulistic than the English one. If skupina (= a group) is feminine singular then skupina mužů (= a group of men) is treated as feminine singular, too. Even if pět (= five) is formally neuter singular then pět mužů (= five men, literally five of men) is treated as neuter singular as well, which is hardly understandable for foreigners learning Czech.
Maybe barbarism (or vernacular "vědít") but future of Czech language . What about "bdějí" vs "bdí". Yes, this is confusing. In Czech it's simple because we expect subject in nominative. Also in English, I always tend to write it in singular but plural is correct (or maybe both is correct but plural prefered).
Interesting thread. I agree, English grammar is in this regard somewhat more flexible than Czech. Additionally, consider this example: Většina lidí neví, kde je Česká republika. This can be translated several ways: Most people don't know where the Czech Republic is. The majority of people don't know where the Czech Republic is. The majority of people doesn't know where the Czech Republic is. The first translation uses "most," a word belonging to the quantifier category mentioned by Ceit. When using the word "majority," though, the verb can be either singular or plural. Informal research conducted just now by me using Google suggests that "the majority of people are" is the more popular choice, with 232,000 hits, versus 11,600 for "the majority of people is." Even in the case of "a crowd of people" I would suggest that modern colloquial English prefers agreement with the noun closest to the verb. Thus, "A crowd of people are..." I realize that this seems unnatural to Czech sensibilities. Many grammar guides suggest that the correct rule is to conjugate the verb in agreement with the collective noun ("majority", "crowd") if one considers the collective noun representing a group, and in agreement with the other noun ("people") if the members of the group should be considered individually. This rule doesn't make sense to me, though. There are also regional distinctions to be considered. British English often treats singular collective nouns as plural. Thus, "The band were playing very loud," whereas American English would use a singular verb. This contradicts the widely held belief by Czechs that British English is inherently more logical.
