"Jeg vil ikke ringe henne på telefonen."
Translation:I do not want to call her on the telephone.
11 Comments
I will not call her on telephone. I got this wrong. Can someone please tell me why?
The answer is: I will not call her by telephone.
How can i know whether to put 'on' or 'by' in this sentence?
I will not call her on telephone simply sounds unnatural in English (the "the" is missing), while I will not call her by telephone sounds perfectly natural. It's a phrase that needs to be memorized, unfortunately. Prepositions are tough.
I wrote: "I won't call her by the telephone" and it says it's incorrect while suggesting me that "I won't call her on the telephone" is correct.
"By phone" or "By telephone" sounds better to my US ears. "By the telephone" sounds like you are describing someone's proximity to the telephone.
Thanks for the reply. :) Great to hear this from the native American. I don't have word for "the" in my mother language so I can't always tell correctly if I can put it there or not.
"The" can be real tricky when you are learning. Sometimes we have sentences where it's optional, For instance: "I play drums" and "I play the drums" are both valid and used interchangeably.
What are smartphones called? And is there a word for "phone" as opposed to "telephone"?
