61 Comments
I wrote "Es isst eine Kartoffel" and it was right, but i think it should be wrong...any ideas?
1797
The German sentence may lead you astray. Knowing the English translation "It is a potato" gives you "Es = It" + "ist = is" ... But if you only have the German sentence (written or oral) you have a different option. "Es = it/the child" + "isst = eats"; if Duolingo overlooks "isst" with a double s, it accepts your version, which unfortunately for you is wrong. Sorry; hope this helps
If it is a type what you hear exercise, your answer would be correct because ist and isst are homophones, thus without context you cannot tell which one is meant. If you had to translate an English sentence it would be incorrect because then the meaning is clear.
Definitely your version is correct, just the meaning is "It (a child) is eating a potato."
\isst is used for eating, in this sentence the \ist is meant to say 'it is a thing' so its the sentence it is a potato; tip is to count how many 's' there are
isst is for eating while ist is for is also, eine is 'an', not 'a', and you're supposed to use 'a' for words that start with consonants
Eine is correct. It's not used the same as English where the initial sound of the following word determines what you use. Eine is used with feminine nouns in nominative case (as it appears here). If the noun is masculine or neuter, you would use ein.
This is supposed to translate 'It is a potato." What makes it incorrect is that sie should be used instead of es, since the noun involved is feminine.
Why isn't "This is a potato" correct? in other exercises with "Es" it and this were accepted. Does Es necessarily mean it or is there a way to tell, even out of context like that?
They're just two different words, like in English. es = it, dies/diese/etc = this.
the sentence is "It is a potato" and es = it; sie = she. The gender of potato determines if it is ein or eine, so "eine Kartoffel" is correct for the feminine potato
but still, in german gender does count for non-human thing right? 'es' is for every neuter noun, and 'Kartoffel' is fem. so..... sie ist eine Kartoffel. maybe duolingo did this so that English speakers don't get confused with the sentence
The word is grammatically treated as feminine, but the potato is still an object, not feminine or masculine. It's the same with the gender of most other words - you don't refer to doors, tabls, spoons, etc. as "he" or "she." This mistake (prominently among others) has often been used in TV shows to indicate someone is French and not quite fluent in English.
Actually, you do refer to potato and door with sie and to table and spoon with er in German. That is quite similar to French with the exception that we have (for whatever reason) 3 randomly distributed genders instead of only 2.
To be honest RynD's question got me thinking quite some time until I noticed that es is only used as a placeholder here. You can see it when you put Kartoffel into plural. Then the sentence would look like this:
Es sind Kartoffeln.
So the verb is conjugated with respect to Kartoffel and independently of es. A search reveals it is apparently a "formal subject with sein":
I wondered the same thing - shouldn't it be "sie" instead of "es" since Potato is feminine?
Potato is feminine, that's why you say "eine Kartoffel" and not "ein Kartoffel". "Es" is the subject of the sentence and doesn't necessarily need to be the same gender.
"einen" is the "a" form of "der" in the objective case. If you are performing an action upon an object, the object's article "ein" will become "einen". 'Ich bin ein/der Mann." is "I am a/the man." "Ich esse einen/den Mann." is "I eat a/the Man." Bad example, but I couldn't think of another masculine word haha I feel like Tobias.
It is purely context. The same way "It tastes bad" means that something tastes unpleasant instead of something tasting something else incorrectly.
How would you know whether it is "ist" or "isst" on these listening questions?
This is my first time running into the word "Kartoffel", and mousing over reveals the definition as "potato/conk/hooter". I just... what even? In this sentence the def. is obviously 'potato', but can someone please clarify the other uses of this word? Should I refrain from complementing people on good-looking "potatoes"?
I think kartoffel can refer to the nose as well as the vegetable, but I'm not all that fluent yet so don't take that for the absolute truth
is there a different between how "ist" and "isst" sounds? I put "Es isst eine Kartoffel" thinking it meant he is eating a potato...
They sound the same. If it was "He is eating a potato" it would be "Er isst eine Kartoffel." It could be "It is eating a potato" or "It is a potato" and I think you just use context to figure out which.
No, it's Die Kartoffel = the potato. Potato is feminine, and therefore you use "eine".
If potato was masculine the sentence would have been "Es ist ein Kartoffel" and not "Es ist einen Kartoffel" Am i correct?
Is there a place where you can see all your posted comments. Or do you just have to go back where you posted them. Hope that makes sence! ;)
Isn't Es "that" as well? I wrote "that is a potato" but it said i was wrong. Could someone give clarification on this? Bitte
I thought that es was er so i put "the man eats the potato" which was a little off i noticed but still, its reaally confusing!
Its all very well learning the sentence 'it is a potato', but can anyone else think of a time in real life when we would actually use that? I mean who doesn't know what a potato is?
Pommes Frites. Know first hand from my travels. Looks like the French. Use German pronunciation.
This gives me nightmares from the Schritte Internationale 1 coursebook.
ES IST EINE KARTOFFEL can also be THAT IS A POTATO, I checked before giving the final answer (it was one of the given options). But, unfortunately, my answer was somehow wrong. Any ideas?
I used isst instead of ist--I see below it used to be correct but they have fixed it; but ist & isst sound exactly the same as do Ihr & Er so how are you supposed to know which is correct when it's a "type what you hear"? Thats what I heard....
