make someone do something - causative

Odriski

Senior Member
Chinese
Dobrý den! I want to know if there any causative expression in czech language?
e.g a)The beautiful music makes me dance
b) The joke makes me laugh
c) I could not make him talk to me.
In the above 3 sentences, each of them has "make" to express the causative. So, I am wondering, if there are any similar word to express the causative?

Děkuji
 
  • I'm not Hrdlodus, but if you want to read my answer, I can tell you something. ;)

    The Czech language is very concrete in its expressions and as English or other languages has the phrasal verbs or other constructions we are used to employ a concrete verb.
    So if in English we have the phrasal verb "make someone do something" in Czech we need a concrete situation to express it.
    Then I propose the following translation:
    a) Ta krásná hudbě mě roztančila. (altough this sentence is in past) / Ta krásná hudba mě nutí tančit. / Z té krásné hudby tančím. / Pro tu krásnou hudbu tančím.
    b) Ten vtip mě (vždy) rozesměje. / Tomu vtipu se pokaždé zasměju.
    c) Nepodařilo se mi, aby si se mnou promluvil.

    I remind that these translations are only suggestions and to express it exactly, you need to know a situation.
    Hope it was useful and answered well.
     
    Ahoj! Vážené marsi.ku a Hrdlodus
    Našel jsem několik příkladů o slove "přimět", které může vyslovit větu jako "make somebody to do".
    1)Soutěžící získávají body, když se jim podaří výběrem písní přimět posluchače k tanci/The contestants score points, when their choice of music compels the audience to dance.
    2)Zeptal jsem se sám sebe: Jak přimět tyto lidi aby začali oceňovat i to nehmatatelné?/So I started asking myself the question: How can we get leaders to start valuing the intangible?
    3)Vědci mohou přimět tuto bytost jít doleva či doprava./The scientists can make this creature go left, right.
    http://cs.bab.la/slovnik/cesky-anglicky/přimět
    Tak myslým, že "přimět někoho dělat" nebo "přimět k něčemu" může vyslovit "make somebody to do", že? Co si myslíte o tom? Čekám na vás názory. Děkuji
     
    "make somebody to do"
    "make someone do something"
    Tak myslým, že "přimět někoho dělat" nebo "přimět k něčemu" může vyslovit "make somebody to do", že?
    přimět někoho k něčemu, přinutit někoho k něčemu, nutiť někoho k něčemu, donutit někoho k něčemu, dohnat někoho k něčemu, atd.
    The Czech language is very concrete in its expressions and as English or other languages has the phrasal verbs or other constructions we are used to employ a concrete verb.
    So if in English we have the phrasal verb "make someone do something" in Czech we need a concrete situation to express it.
    [...]
    I remind that these translations are only suggestions and to express it exactly, you need to know a situation.
    P.S. I don't like the translations from cs.bab.la you have provided us with.
     
    Děkuji za vás odpověď, ale proč nemáte rád překládání z cs.bab.la ? Tam jsou nějaké chyby?
     
    To me, only the translation #1 sounds natural in Czech. The translations #2 and #3 sound... well, like translations. By the way, there is a comma missing in the translation #2 (after lidi).
    Přimět někoho k něčemu and the other translations suggested by morior_invictus are ok as generic expressions of the causative but I would tend to agree with marsi.ku. The Czech uses verbal prefixes a lot. Verbs such as roztančit někoho and rozesmát někoho are in my opinion the most idiomatic translations of "make someone dance" / "make someone laugh". But this works on a case-by-case basis.
     
    Dobrý den! I want to know if there any causative expression in czech language?
    e.g a)The beautiful music makes me dance -> makes me dance = mě roztančí
    b) The joke makes me laugh -> makes me laugh = mě rozesměje
    c) I could not make him talk to me. -> Nemohla jsem ho přinutit, aby se mnou mluvil.
    In the above 3 sentences, each of them has "make" to express the causative. So, I am wondering, if there are any similar word to express the causative?

    Děkuji
     
    I am a bit late to the party here... For background- I'm native Czech, but I've studied linguistics (in English) and wrote my Master's Thesis on Causatives (in Nasioi, not Czech). But I'm a nerd and was thinking about Czech, and of course the more I thought, the less I could come up with something.

    I can give a little linguistic perspective on the above though:

    Coming in from English it seems like the OP is looking for periphrastic (or analytic) construction (like English make, force). Czech does have the above mentioned přimět/přinutit which does translate to 'compel/force' someone to do something, and it is used in the main clause with the lexical verb in a subordinate clause as in "Jak přimět tyto lidi aby začali oceňovat i to nehmatatelné?" from the above example...

    More commonly though Czech uses the morphological causative 'roz' prefix. So 'made me laugh' is 'rozesmál mě' with the root 'smát se' (to be laughing). And this is very very common. So spilt milk would be 'rozlité mléko' from 'leje' 'lít' 'vylít' or 'melted the ice' as 'led roztál' (change of state) although here it is intransitive. Anyways, if you do look at Czech verbs in detail, you will find that verbs are pretty intense with how much marking on verbal root tells you about the rest of the sentence, especially past tense, but you will have prefixes to change from perfective to imperfect forms etc and causative generally works the same.
     
    Bohužel, to je otázka na někoho, kdo je znalý principů češtiny.
    I'm sorry, this is question for someoone deeply interested in Czech.
    Please note that “znaly” does not translate to “deeply interested”. Znaly principu češtiny just means versed in Czech (language) grammar. You can be obviously deeply interested in something without knowing that much about it.
     
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