# This / That



## aedude94

Hey everyone! Sorry I ask so many questions, but I love the Czech language and need help with all its complexities!  Anyways, I wanted to know what are the ways to say "This" and "That" both as demonstrative adjectives and pronouns in Czech? At first I thought that "ten/ta/to" (when put before a noun) meant both this and that. However now, I believe that they just mean that. Now I don't understand how to say this, is it "tento/tato/toto" before the noun? Finally, I am pretty sure that "tenhle/tahle/tohle" mean this as demonstrative pronouns. Is that correct? Sorry for all the confusion and my crazy questions. Please help! Thanks!


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## Jana337

Your questions are not crazy - please keep them coming! 

First of all, this website will help you with registers. You should take seriously (=learn) the first line for each gender and just be aware of the rest.



> Anyways, I wanted to know what are the ways to say "This" and "That" both as demonstrative adjectives and pronouns in Czech?


As an aside, we consider them pronouns even in the adjectival position. The concept of demonstrative adjectives was introduced to me when I started learning Italian. 



> At first I thought that "ten/ta/to" (when put before a noun) meant both this and that.


Well, the distinction is certainly less sharp than in English.


> However now, I believe that they just mean that.


This is formally correct, but they also mean "the". It is poor style to overuse ten/ta/to if it means "the".



> Now I don't understand how to say this, is it "tento/tato/toto" before the noun?


Standard - tento/tato/toto. See the website I linked to above for the numerous colloquialisms.





> Finally, I am pretty sure that "tenhle/tahle/tohle" mean this as demonstrative pronouns.  Is that correct?


Yes.

I'd say we use "tento/tato/toto" (in standard Czech) if we really wish to emphasize "this". Otherwise we go for "ten/ta/to" even if we mean "this".

All of them can be used as both demonstrative adjectives and pronouns.
Ten obraz je můj. - That/the painting is mine.
Tento/tenhle/tenhleten ... obraz je můj. - This painting is mine.
Tenhle je můj, ale tamten ne. - This one is mine but that one is not.

Important: When Czechs speaks about undetermined objects, the gender defaults to the neuter.
_Co to je?_ What is it/this/that?
_To/toto je nepřijatelné! _It/this is unacceptable!


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## aedude94

Thank you very much Jana!!! (Dik Jano!)


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## beclija

So you don't have the tripartition of demonstratives like in other Slavic languages (or Spanish, for that matter), like Croatian ovo (this), to (relatively close that, or beforementioned in a conversation) and ono (distant that)? Interesting...


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## Jana337

We have onen/ona/ono but you do not hear them very often. To me, they do not carry a clear indication of distance (except for "onen svět", the hereafter) and the most common meaning is simply "aforementioned". I think the tripartition did work in Czech earlier but it is not perceived this way by most speakers. I admit that I had to spend a while summarizing my thoughts before writing the post above.


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## Tom.K.

Well.. Czech does have quite a few though doesn`t it.. 

Ten
Tento/Tenhle (Tenhle is a spoken form though right?)
Tamten
Onen 

I guess you just can`t translate them literally into English. 

Ten would be this/that/the..,  something we`ve just been talking about.
Tento is "This here", as in "it`s right in front of me"
Tamten "That there", or "That thing we were talking about before and have talked about something else in between"
Onen is, like you were saying Jana, something remote.. really hard to translate into English actually!


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## aedude94

Hi, I was typing a letter last night to my girfriend and I wanted to say "Is that right?" and I didn't know how to say it. I don't understand how to translate "that" as a demonstrative pronoun, as I need it in my example. Is it tamten? So would the phrase be "Je tamten spravny", is spravny a word? I think I may have made that up, but that is the first thing that came to mind for correct/right, well as did pravdu but that is only used in the phrase mam/mas/ma pravdu for to be right. Anyways, please help me! haha! THANKS!


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## Jana337

No, in such cases, the simplest variant - ten/ta/to - is the best choice. As I said, we use the neuter a lot.

Je to správně?


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