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- "Kids, eat eggs!"
"Kids, eat eggs!"
Translation:Kinder, esst Eier!
53 Comments
I think this is because Duolingo teaches by introducing topics and noticing how you deal with them and learn them. For example, by the English "Kids, eat eggs!" we can see that this is a commanding tone. If we notice the difference between that and regular grammar, we can learn what is going on. I think it's a clever way of learning Grammar. You learn it without having to be told directly.
Granted, but shouldn't a little instruction be there beforehand? This is just painful, and would be confusing for a person who wouldn't recognized this as imperative. I knew it was, and hesitated before writing 'essen', but I didn't know what it would have been... wait...
Darn it, I should I looked at the mouseover!! Maybe there should be some kind of hint.
EDIT: nope, no conjugation of the imperative tense in the mouseover. I am justified.
It isn't about being fair or giving you the answer. Being able to correctly answer the question is irrelevant. Learning the language is what matters. Introducing topics this way helps you to learn, it is more consistent with the way that we all learned our native languages when we were children and has been proven to be more successful than the traditional method of 'introduce, teach, then test' that has been used in classrooms.
Also, it is free...
If the original sentence was "Kids, eating eggs" it would be merely talking ABOUT the kids so the "kids" would be third person and the sentence would be translated as "Kinder, essen Eier." However, the original sentence was of an imperative form, "Kids, eat eggs!" making the "kids" second person because they are on the receiving end of the speaker's command. So it would instead be translated as "Kinder, esst Eier!"
I must admit, this sentence took me by surprise and I did get it wrong the first time around but sometimes the best way to learn something is by making a mistake and then learning from experience how not to make it again.
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... but Duolingo is not (just) a game, it's a language learning tool. In any language school you'll get texts for reading or listening, in class or as homework, where you won't know all the words and all the grammar.
I can suggest this site to check the conjugations, they are mostly listed for verbs. http://www.dict.cc/deutsch-englisch/essen.html
And yes, er/sie/es isst (singular); ihr esst (plural).
My problem with this question is not whether essen or esst is correct. The problem, as previously stated by others, is why on earth would I think to use the word esst when it was never introduced before? They should introduce new verb forms in German first, not expect users to translate an English phrase.
Because it has been introduced before (ihr esst). Just like in English, the subject of the sentence is being addressed. If I said, "Amanda, bring me those books," I'm addressing you - that is, I'm technically saying "Amanda, you bring me those books." We'd consider that a bit rude in English, but it's still there, and German does the same thing, so the verb is conjugated to match the "you" that's being left out.
This whole comment thread is kind of ridiculous. Why on earth would I think to put an umlaut over Apfel to make it plural? I wouldn't, but I got a question wrong and learned it. That's how this learning method works and it's not the first time any of you have encountered it if you've gotten this far. They expected you to be able to take a grammatical concept that's been introduced since the first lesson (conjugating based on the subject of a sentence) and apply it in a more complex way. I have no idea why so many people are angry about it this particular time.
Kids are being treated as one plural entity and since the command is direct to them, the verb command takes second person plural. Second person plural is "Ihr (which means 'you' in the sense of 'all of you' or 'all y'all')" and has its own conjugation (which can be very irregular at times) as well (which is why its "ihr esst" for "you (all) eat" and "ihr seid" for "you (all) are").