Dialogue

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Vocabulary

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Lesson Notes

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Lesson Transcript

INTRODUCTION
In this lesson we will introduce a phrase that will surely come in handy for capturing your memories on film or memory cards. The Czech Republic has many beautiful places, so you will want to take lots of pictures of landscapes and monuments. And sometimes you will want to be part of the picture or include someone else too. For those times, the question “Can you take a picture?” will be invaluable!
GRAMMAR POINT
Let’s imagine first that you want to take a picture with your friends. The question you will definitely need to ask is “Can you take our picture, please?”. In Czech that is:
Můžete nás vyfotit, prosím?
Let’s break it down:
(slow) Mů-že-te nás vy-fo-tit, pro-sím?
Once more:
Můžete nás vyfotit, prosím?
The first word můžete is a present form of the verb that means “can you”.
(slow) Mů-že-te.
Můžete.
The next words, nás, can be translated in Czech as ”us”.
(slow) Nás.
Nás.
As the last word we have vyfotit which means “to take a picture”.
(slow) Vy-fo-tit.
Vyfotit.
And as usual at the end we have prosím.
All together, that’s
(slow) Mů-že-te nás vy-fo-tit, pro-sím?
Můžete nás vyfotit, prosím?
・
The phrase we just learned is formal, so let’s see the informal version of “Can you take a picture?”
Můžeš nás vyfotit?
(slow) Mů-žeš nás vy-fo-tit?
Můžeš nás vyfotit?
The only difference from the previous expression is that in the beginning you put “můžeš” instead of “můžete” You can also omit prosím at the end. The meaning is the same “Can you take our picture?” Můžeš nás vyfotit?
・
If you are on your own and you want to ask someone to take your picture, you’ll ask “Can you take my picture, please?” In Czech, this is..
Můžete mě vyfotit, prosím?
Let’s break it down:
(slow) Mů-že-te mě vy-fo-tit, pro-sím?
Again at natural speed:
Můžete mě vyfotit, prosím?
In this sentence, you will use mě meaning “me” instead of nás meaning “us”.
Můžete mě vyfotit, prosím?
・
If there is no need to be polite say Můžeš mě vyfotit? This is the informal version used to ask “Can you take my picture?”
(slow) Mů-žeš mě vy-fo-tit?
Můžeš mě vyfotit?
As you already may have noticed, the only change we made in the previous formal sentence was to replace the little word nás with mě and our question changed from plural to singular.
Nás is a form of the pronoun “us”, and mě is a form of the pronoun “I”.

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