8 ms·

I am not sure that "good soldier" is a correct translation. Czech "dobrého vojáka" is more "of brave (in `dashing` conotation) soldier". So Hašek's humor star

• The_Colonel 3y ago
  "good" is an exact translation of "dobry" Maybe Hasek intended a double meaning of "dobry vojak" as a) good-natured soldier and b) high-quality soldier (which would be sarcasm), but TBH the option b) just never occurred to me (I'm a native Czech speaker).
  • int_19h 3y ago
    "Good" ended up the default meaning in many Slavic languages, but its original meaning was much broader (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic/dobr%D1%8A https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic/d...), and AFAIK those other meanings are still understood if considered archaic - is that not the case in Czech?
    • The_Colonel 3y ago
      > but its original meaning was much broader (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic/d https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic/d...) Is it really that broad? There are many examples, but none really deviates from "good". In pretty much everyone of them, I could just use "good" and it would work OK. The only reference to "dobry" meaning "brave" is this: > Cognate with Latvian dabravecis (“brave, prudent man”). But Czech was likely not heavily influenced by Latvian. Honestly, I think people should just stop assuming that if word X means Y in a Slavic language A, that it should have the same meaning in a Slavic language B. I see these kind of broken assumptions very often, but there are way too many false friends for this to work.