131 Comments
It seems odd, that one would have to check all the cats' gender, to be sure no males are in the group, before saying Las gatas. Would a spanish cat lady accuse you of bad grammar if you refered to her pack of female cats as Los gatos?
She may casually explain that they are all female in conversation, but it wouldn't be an offense to the culture like referring to a human male in the feminine. You do want to try to get gender correct, but it's a much bigger deal to get it correct in humans. With humans it is more offensive than a simple grammar mistake. It would probably be safer to just pick a gender than to start feeling her cats up. If you do that, you may irritate her, or worse, the cat!
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"las gatas" refers to female cats only, "los gatos" refers to male cats or cats in general
If you don't know the difference between a "un gate" and "una gata"- you're likely to have LOTS of little gatos and gatas... :)
That is not always true. Lime humans is depends on a lot of different factos, including genetics area of origin etc. Some cats are sensitive to milk in the same way some humans are, but not all cats are.
We are being taught that "los" is the plural for "el" and "las" is the plural for "la". While "las gatas" is grammatically correct when talking about female cats, this is not explained, so surely the program should use "los gatos" as default.
Like "the cats are drinking milk"? Because the original sentence is "Las gatas beben leche" and, depending on the context, that could be either something the cats are doing right now or something they usually do. "The cats are drinking milk" implies necessarily that they're drinkng right now. Well, "Las gatas beben leche" could mean that they usually drink milk but they're not doing it at this very moment.
Not sure I got it, isn't something you do right now used in present continuous?
I understood this can either be "Cats drink milk" or "The cats drink milk", and judging by recent alternative suggestions also "The cats are drinking milk". Why is the last wrong then? Can't it be that the cats are currently drinking milk, even though they don't most of the time? (Either they usually drink something else like water, or they are drinking at this moment but not all the time)
Milk can give cats UTI - urinary tract infection, which my cat recently recovered from. Good that we figured it out early. So yes, for some cats it can cause a serious illness. Generally, it's better not to risk.
I was very tempted to translate this as "Cats drink milk" which I'm pretty sure is correct- but didn't want to lose a heart, so gave them the translation I know they wanted. Does anyone know if Duo will accept "Cats drink milk" as a general statement- (as in "Does eat oats"?). Does a Spanish speaker know whether it would be correct to use in this context? Gracias.
"Cats drink milk" would be translated as "Gatos beben leche". In spanish that just doesn't sound right. It is "Los gatos beben leche".
I put this in but it didn't accept it. Perhaps 'Cats drink milk' should be 'El gato bebe leche' in the singular - but I'm only going by analogy with Italian.
I really wish there was a word for a female cat in English. I mean, a female dog is a ❤❤❤❤❤, but I was only taught the masculine form of dogs("perros", so I guess the female is "perras"...?), so I have no use in the English female form for now.
I want to be able to let Duo know I understand this is a female noun, and that I can tell the difference; right now even if I don't know the difference between "gatos" and "gatas" I get this right. I don't like not being able to learn from my mistakes.
I noticed cats and dogs use masculine/feminine names. Most of the other animals don't? Is there a reason?
I was also wondering about this. Everyone seems to be more hung up on what cats should and shouldn't eat.
Now that I'm further along, I think that it is because cats and dogs are pets. I realize that many other animals are pets now but since language goes way back I'm guessing it's just something from long ago that just stays with the language.
The "pets-that-have-been-with-humans-for-a-long-time" theory makes sense to me. Among non-human animals, are dogs & cats the only ones that have both masculine & feminine endings for the same root?
No. I know my friend that is a Spanish teacher told me there are more. Of course I can't remember them.
If you remember to ask the next time you see your friend, I'd be interested to know what they are. (I'm always looking for patterns.)
Animals In the case of languages which have masculine and feminine genders, the relation between biological sex and grammatical gender tends to be less exact in the case of animals than in the case of people. In Spanish, for instance, a cheetah is always un guepardo (masculine) and a zebra is always una cebra (feminine), regardless of their biological sex. To specify the sex of an animal, an adjective may be added, as in un guepardo hembra ("a female cheetah"), or una cebra macho ("a male zebra"). Different names for the male and the female of a species are more frequent for common pets or farm animals, e.g. English cow and bull, Spanish vaca "cow" and toro "bull".
http://spanish.about.com/od/nouns/a/gender-animals.htm
I decided to look it up. Not a comprehensive list. I thought she told me about horses but I thought I was remembering wrong since no one says anything on here about it.
does this program generally use groups of females when normally you'd learn them as groups of males/mixed groups? Por ejemplo: Las gatas, Nosotras...etc. ??
No. Duolingo spices the questions by adding a few feminine groups, but most questions use the masculine/mixed forms. There are just enough to make people ask (and investigate) when to use each.
I was wondering why they kept switching gender pronouns for the animals. Animals have genders too, like people. Thay makes so much sense...
Um I put "The cats drink milk" but the "k" didn't show up until AFTER the answer was revealed and it counted it wrong... but in the end, I got it right. But I lost a life. So... yay?
I wrote "thecats drinnk milk". I am so maddd!! Seriously! Just a bunch of typos, I can't pass my lesson!
I feel you bro, it happens to me too! And it's mostly because of the keyboard, sometimes the keys don't work. :(
Can anyone explain why do I get same questions in one exercise? Is it just me? :)
It is so that you can be refreshed during a lesson and don't forget anything. They tend to focus on a single word for most the lesson, so they pop up two of the same questions as a refresher to help you remember. Hope I helped!!
I think that the translation to English does not requires the use of 'The' . Sure in Spanish then the article must be used for a general statement but in English surely ..Cats drink milk...is good.
They do on young age, and even though they shouldn't as adults they are fed (or is it "drunk"?) milk by humans.
Don't know in other countries but in Argentina both "gata" and "perra" are insults use for females. "Perra" is similar to slut and "Gata" something like minx.
Cats are actually lactose intolerant, so should be discouraged from this activity, despite it helping with my lessons.
It's how you conjugate the verb.
You know how in English you add -s to the end of a verb for he, she, it? And if you sometimes use old English like me, -st for thou? Well, in Spanish you do the same, except there are more groups.
you start with beb.
Now I'm not an expert (yet ;)) in Spanish, but I suppose it's because "to eat" is beber that you subtract the -er.
I know it works this way in French, so there might be a relation.
- yo bebo
- tú bebes
- él / ella / usted bebe
- nosotros / nosotras bebemos
- ellos / ellas / ustedes beben
Now, just like in English where "they" and "you" are different persons,
Ellos/Ellas and Ustedes are different persons. You don't use "they" and "you" as the same word, but you still use "are" with both of them.
Coincidentally, these two share the conjugation in Spanish too, but there could be different (groups) pairing than the English ones; like Ella and Usted(-e) which are conjugated separately in English (she is, you are).
Sorry for over-explaining, but I saw many people being confused with this.
If I hover over 'gatas' it says : (feminine) cats; maids; amateurs. Outside of the context of this lesson (which is about animals) how would you know if someone was referring to female cats or maids?
drinking milk and water gets a little boring. I am sure the animals could do something else too...
Don't feed your cat milk! It's actually a common misconception that cats can drink milk
Why not.
The cats DRINKS milk.
My english is not great, but we are talking about more then one cat that drink milk..
It's because it's incorrect in English.
I used to think that too when I just started to learn English
You add -s to the verb only for "he", "she", "it". The rest stay unchanged.
You don't make the verb plural when you add -s, it only works on nouns.
You add the -s to verbs when the subject is he, she, or it. Basically only on the ones you use "is" on.
When the subject is plural, it becomes "they", so you don't add the -s. It's just like you don't say "they is", you don't say "they drinks".
Did it mark it as a mistake? Because I think it should be a typo.
I just love this one! It really warms my heart. Go Cats!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I had to translate not choose from multiple answers so The females (Las gatas) drink milk should be correct as Las gatas is feminine and Los gatos is masculine
Why cant we use other form of tense here ? Only present tense .. Cant we use continuous tense here ? And the difference between male and female is not clear here
This is so easy.Probley because I am Mexican and already know spanish and I am only 11
hi guys i"m new at his sometimes i forge thing and when i get them wrong i freak out and get mad
when they say gato and gata they sound the the same. some times it confusing ? i get confused alot. im serious im confused
Well it has to be just female cats, because if it was only males or both female and male then it would be gatos
Is it just me, or is Duolingo obsessed with animals drink milk and water?
where did you hear that? El gato or la gata is the cat, and el perro is the dog. I think perro can be female, la perra but not sure about that.
Male or male and female cats ( Gatos)
And
Female cats ( gatas)
That's the difference
Will "This kittens drink milk" work? -It is most likely not the answer to use mulk ;-; oops-
I like the beer drinking bears better.....or the milk drinking crabs!....which is quite hard to visualise.....
Actually duolingo cats are lactose intolerant so learn your facts!!!!!!!!!!!!
I WROTE, " The cats drink milk." BUT IT WAS WRONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! D:<
Earlier, I differentiated "gatas" as "female cats." It was counted incorrect. So, "gatas" means "female cats;" however, you do not have to include the differentiation in a translation?
