Questions & Answers about Nevím, proč mě tento film zajímá.
Why does zajímá mean interests me rather than I am interested?
Because Czech uses the verb zajímat in a different way from English to be interested in.
The Czech pattern is:
- Something = subject
- someone = object
So:
- Tento film mě zajímá. = This film interests me.
Literally, your sentence is:
- Nevím = I don’t know
- proč = why
- mě = me
- tento film = this film
- zajímá = interests
So the whole sentence is structurally closer to:
- I don’t know why this film interests me.
That is the key thing to remember: with zajímat, the thing causing interest is the subject.
Why is it mě and not já?
Because mě is the object form of já.
Here, mě means me, not I. Since zajímat works like interest, the person who feels the interest is in the object position.
Compare:
- já = I
- mě = me
So:
- Tento film mě zajímá. = This film interests me.
If you used já, it would be grammatically wrong here, because já is nominative, and the verb needs an object.
Why is film the subject of the sentence?