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- Topic: Russian >
- "Мост цел."
20 Comments
Marked incorrect for "The bridge is safe".
I get a hover-note that says:
"«Цел», stictly speaking, means "whole, undamaged, in one piece". Compare to its full form целый (whole, full, entire, intact)"
But then correct solutions are listed as:
Correct solutions: • The bridge is ok. • The bridge is safe and sound.
I'm struggling to see in what way "The bridge is safe and sound" is necessarily different from "The bridge is safe".
The only context where I can imagine the two versions not being able to stand in for each other is if the bridge is broken and collapsed (so, not "safe and sound") and thus can be oddly but reasonably described as the other kind of "safe", ie, it's not about to cause any harm, because it can no longer collapse with anyone on it.
However, the answer "...is safe" would apply to this context just as much as the others, and a bridge categorically cannot be "safe and sound" without being "safe" (any more than something can be blue and small without also being blue).
Presumably not merely a question of "The bridge is safe" simply not being added to the database yet, as it got a hover-note, suggesting human involvement with it.
But how can "The bridge is safe" be incorrect if "The bridge is safe and sound" is correct?
OK. I simply thought that "safe" usually means that a bridge is safe to use rather than "not broken". If you have any idea how you can say that a bridge is safe but not say that it is safe to use, we are open to suggestions because I really dislike having safe is the best translation (the meaning has hardly anything in common, other than being yet another way of saying "the bridge is OK"). Do you suggest removing "safe and sound" or...?
"Safe and sound" is an idiom, is it not?
"Safe and sound" is an idiom, yes, the same as the French "sain et sauf".
I too think it looks really odd to have "safe and sound" as the best translation.
I'd suggest "intact" as a best single-word translation that has no room for ambiguity as "safe" might.
Done. Let it be "intact" :)
Note that some older sentences have two main translations, which is not the best way to have things, especially if the two look rather different (e.g., "I have got a toilet at home" vs. "My house has a bathroom"). We try to fix that as we look closer at skills finished way, way back, more than a year ago.
Without context, that'd probably be the most likely, but either would be perfectly possible.
On a side note, "...is in one piece" isn't accepted as a correct answer either, despite appearing in the pop-up note as a more precise translation of "цел". I'm not sure whether "...is whole" is currently accepted or not.
I am not a native speaker of English. Trying to include everything I think might fit leads to exactly this kind of problem: something like "safe and sound" is accepted while being rather confusing for a native speaker.
Are "in one piece" and "intact" OK in this context (=not damaged)? What else stays true to the original sentence? Saying the bridge is OK to use is not what the original sentence means. I think, the word "safe" sort of works but should not, probably, be the main translation due to its vagueness.
"in one piece" and better yet (for being a single word) "intact" are both great; they're faithful translations of the idea, and don't leave room for ambiguity.
Are there a lot of bridges in Russia that are not intact? This seems like a ridiculous sentence!
"An intact bridge" not currently accepted. Is the prompt as written necessarily a copula construction? I thought that would be shown with a dash as "мост - цел."
In either event, why is цел not inflected?
Цел is a predicate adjective, which is always a part of the predicate. It has forms цел, цела́, це́ло, це́лы. In modern Russian short adjectives are only used in predicates (when not in a set expression dating a few centuries back, e.g. на босу ногу)
An intact bridge is целый мост. Note the adjective and the word order.
472
I chose to use whole, as opposed to intact, which is one of the options for the word цел, and was marked as incorrect.
"Fixed" implies that it was once broken and is now already fixed, besides it has also other non-suitable meanings
I think this is from the game "Company of Heroes" behind the berlin lines where the comrade says the bridge is intact after the Germans tried to demolish the bridge.
- 615
Indeed, why does it have to have a verb. I know it's not necessary, but why is it wrong?
- 271
I offered "мост сел", which is what it sounded like to me, and Duolingo accepted it, without even a "typo" comment!
