"Jeg vil ikke ringe henne på telefonen."
Translation:I do not want to call her on the telephone.
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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.
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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.
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"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.
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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.
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"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"?
