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Czech Cases - Instrumental or Locative? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| vixsta Newbie United Kingdom Joined 4628 days ago 11 posts - 16 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Czech, Georgian | Message 1 of 10 28 January 2015 at 8:05am | IP Logged | ||
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I thought I'd got the hang of Czech cases but then I got this translation exercise in one
of my books: "The school is behind the bridge" The answer given was "škola je za mostem" I'm confused because "mostem" is the instrumental, but I thought it would be the locative/prepositional because of the word "behind". Can anyone shed any light on this? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Saim Pentaglot Senior Member AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4896 days ago 124 posts - 215 votes  Speaks: Serbo-Croatian, English*, Catalan, Spanish, Polish Studies: Dutch, Portuguese, Italian, Occitan, Punjabi, Urdu, Arabic (Maghribi), French, Modern Hebrew, Ukrainian, Slovenian | Message 2 of 10 28 January 2015 at 10:50am | IP Logged | ||
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I don't know Czech, but in other Slavic languages (namely Serbian and Polish) these kinds of
prepositions use instrumental. In Polish: za mostem (behind the bridge) przed mostem (in front of the bridge) pod mostem (under the bridge) nad mostem (over, on top of the bridge) In Serbian there are both instrumental (which implies greater proximity) and genitive (which has become the unmarked form): za mostom/iza mosta pred mostom/ispred mosta pod mostom/ispod mosta nad mostom/iznad mosta AFAIK Czech works basically like Polish in this case (as do Slovene and Ukrainian). I'm not sure if there is any logical explanation for this system, but I can tell you this is quite common in Slavic languages. Edited by Saim on 28 January 2015 at 10:51am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4822 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 3 of 10 28 January 2015 at 1:31pm | IP Logged | ||
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There is a method natives use when learning grammar. We don't use much the terms
"locative, instrumental,...", we use the questions. nominativ: kdo, co? genitiv: koho, čeho? dativ: komu, čemu? akuzativ: koho, co? vokativ: that is adressing someone, no question lokál: (o) kom, čem? instrumentál: (s) kým, čím? many prepositions of place (za, pod, před, nad,...) are followed by the instrumental, as Saim correctly pointed out. I think more input can help you get used to it and getting the feel for what follows what. It is helping my German declinations, I think it will help you as well. Devour more exemples, get used to things. And perhaps sorting the noun forms by the appropriate questions might be more helpful than using the names, as the names are, as you can see yourself, not always (by far) a precise definition of the function the word has in the sentence. Škola stojí za kým, za čím? Škola stojí za mostem. Mluvím o kom, o čem? Mluvím o mostu. Edited by Cavesa on 28 January 2015 at 1:34pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 6969 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 4 of 10 28 January 2015 at 1:35pm | IP Logged | ||
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The Czech example is correct. Even though it is describing location (behind sb/sg), za never governs locative. It governs instrumental, accusative or genitive. I couldn't tell you why, but I wouldn't dwell on it.
Not every preposition that implies being stationary relative to sb / sg else takes locative. Genitive or even dative in addition to instrumental can occur. E.g. Byli všichni u Anny včera? “Was everyone at Anna's yesterday?” (genitive) Sedím vedle Anny / reproduktora “I'm sitting beside Anna / the loudspeaker.” (genitive) Sedím (na)proti Anně / reproduktoru “I'm sitting opposite / across from Anna / the loudspeaker.” (dative) Edited by Chung on 28 January 2015 at 5:04pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4657 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 5 of 10 28 January 2015 at 5:46pm | IP Logged | ||
While this may be a suitable method for a native speaker, learners of a foreign language have the disadvantage that they don't know which preposition goes with which question word. They have to learn that by rote, so there's no real difference between learning the correct question and learning the name of the appropriate case. By the way, it's the same in Russian and it really confused me in the beginning: Many prepositions of place take the instrumental. Edited by Josquin on 28 January 2015 at 5:46pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4822 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 6 of 10 29 January 2015 at 3:23pm | IP Logged | ||
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Well, that is why I said you need more input, to get used to the prepositions.
I think it is not worse for a learner to use the questions than to use the names like "locative" and "instrumental", because those are simply confusing per se as they do not always have a relation with the function of the word. Another thing that helps me learn the cases in German, which are quite different from ours, is exactly about getting used to which prepositions goes where. What I do is trying to remember an exemple. Just one exemple in memory is a good step towards automatisation of the preposition+exemple noun in the appropriate case. It helps much more than learning a list of prepositions+name of the case. So, perhaps remembering an exemple (or a few) like: "za mostem, za branou, za náměstím", might work better than trying to memorize "za+instrumental". 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 6969 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 7 of 10 29 January 2015 at 4:17pm | IP Logged | ||
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I've never understood the convention in Slavonic pedagogy to think of the cases with the interrogative pronouns. My Polish and Ukrainian instructors in addition to my Czech one offered the same idea when reviewing cases although I doubt that it helped much considering that the endings of the cases merge depending on the gender, and that the technique says nothing that some prepositions can govern more than one case. I remember one of my classmates in Ukrainian class being confused when first seeing за take instrumental because she'd been familiar with its use with дякувати where it would take accusative (e.g. Дякую за запрошення “Thank you for the invitation.”).
I found that the best way to learn the prepositions and their cases was to stick to the conventional names (a helluva lot better than 1. pád, 2. pád, 3. pád...) and learn each preposition one-by-one with example sentences and explanations. This was most effective when dealing with prepositions that govern more than one case. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4822 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 8 of 10 29 January 2015 at 4:37pm | IP Logged | ||
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I totally agree with the exemples. The most funny point about trying to learn German
cases using 1.pád, 2.pád, 3.pád, 4.pád terminology were differences in the order of akkuzative and dative in various resources. I hope Czech teaching doesn't suffer from the same chaos. Really, nothing beats a good exemple, in my opinion. Chung, have you found a good resource on exemples? I can think of just one. It is called "Cvičebnice anglické gramatiky", which is originally for Czechs learning ENglish. However, it is based on translating sentences. Left page are the Czech ones, Right page ar the English ones. I think it could be useful in the other direction as well. I wonder, as I am considering learning a slavic language as well in future, do the Polish or Russian cases more or less correspond to the Czech ones? Am I likely to encounter similar troubles like in German or Latin? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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