# All Slavic: "the video of her playing guitar"



## kishe

How do Slavic languages translate with phrases like (I saw the) "video of her playing guitar"?   Video and guitar both take the accusative?    What about "her"?     Is it in genitive?

I don't want to say "I saw her play the guitar on video" because that means something else, nor do I want to say "I saw a video, where she plays the guitar" because that also does not carry the same meaning.

I'm more interested in the structure so that I can say (I heard) "a recording of him admitting the payment," (I saw) "a photo of them washing a car" and so on, i.e. The structure of dealing with multiple direct objects.

What's the best method?  Is there a difference between the colloquial/spoken way of saying that vs the official, bookish way of saying it?

Thank you all.


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## Karton Realista

Polish:
Wideo, gdzie grała na gitarze. (where she played the guitar)
Wideo, na którym grała itd. (on which she played...
Wideo, jak grała... (jak means how, but here it's hard to explain).
Gitara is in Locative, and wideo as you said. You can also say filmik for wideo.


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## Panceltic

I believe the Slavic languages are a bit clumsy in this situation and cannot easily express this in a single sentence (without dependent clauses).

In Slovenian: Videl sem video, v katerem igra kitaro. (I saw a video in which she plays guitar)

I guess one could say "Videl sem video njenega igranja kitare" (I saw a video of her playing guitar) but it sounds quite unnatural.

For your other examples: Slišal sem posnetek, na katerem priznava plačilo (I heard a recording in which he admits the payment), Videl sem sliko, na kateri perejo avto (I saw a photo in which they wash a car).

"Slišal sem posnetek njegovega priznanja plačila" is borderline OK, but "Videl sem sliko njihovega pranja avta" is downright horrible.


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## kloie

Serbian and Croatian: Video Sam kako je svirao gitaru.


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## Awwal12

kishe said:


> How do Slavic languages translate with phrases like (I saw the) "video of her playing guitar"?   Video and guitar both take the accusative?    What about "her"?     Is it in genitive?
> 
> I don't want to say "I saw her play the guitar on video" because that means something else, nor do I want to say "I saw a video, where she plays the guitar" because that also does not carry the same meaning.
> 
> I'm more interested in the structure so that I can say (I heard) "a recording of him admitting the payment," (I saw) "a photo of them washing a car" and so on, i.e. The structure of dealing with multiple direct objects.


Not normally possible, or really unnatural. It seems the standard way in the Slavic languages is adding a subordinate clause. In Russian you could try to play a bit with participles or action names (like видео с ее игрой на гитаре - ~~a video with the guitar play of her, or видео с ней, играющей на гитаре - ~~a video with her, playing _(a feminine active present participle, standing in the instrumentalis, - since "her" after "with" is also in instrumentalis)_ a guitar), but it wouldn't be the same and, rest assured, it's not the normal way to build sentences. The standard way is the same as in Polish above.
Видео, на котором она играет на гитаре.
Видео, где она играет на гитаре.
Видео того, как она играет на гитаре. (...of that how she is playing guitar)


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## Hachi25

It is impossible to translate literally because Slavic languages don't use gerund like English does, so you can't translate 'playing' and therefore you can't deal with multiple direct objects in constructions like this one.

The closest thing in Serbo-Croatian would be "Pogledao sam video njenoga sviranja gitare", but this sentence is not something you'll hear from native speakers.

As Awwal12 said, you need a subordinate clause to make a sentence look and sound normal: "Pogledao sam video u/na kojem ona svira gitaru" or "Pogledao sam njen video u/na kojem svira gitaru" or something similar.

As for your other sentences:
(I heard) "a recording of him admitting the payment." = (Čuo sam) snimak na kojem priznaje da je platio.
(I saw) "a photo of them washing a car." = (Vidio sam) fotografiju na kojoj peru auto.




kloie said:


> Serbian and Croatian: Video Sam kako je svirao gitaru.


And this is wrong in more ways than one, but the main point is that it is not a correct translation of any of the sentences that kishe wrote in his post.


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## kloie

Oh sorry that's how my book explains it.


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## ilocas2

Czech:

*video, jak hraje na kytaru* (video,-how-plays-on-guitar)


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## Jeki

Yes, that's true, in Serbo-Croatian there is no such construction as we can find it in Latin (accusative and nominative with infinitive), French or English.

In Serbo-Croatian we can use clauses with *that *("izrične rečenice"), for example : I saw you laughing. - Video sam kako/da se smeješ.

Talking about sentence "I saw the video of her playing guitar." I would say : Video sam snimak u kom ona svira na gitari. or even: Video sam je kako svira na gitari, u jednom snimku.

Anyway, it can't be translated litteraly, but there are many different ways to express the same idea.


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