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- "У меня болит голова, и я иду…
"У меня болит голова, и я иду в аптеку купить лекарство."
Translation:I have a headache and I am going to the drugstore to buy medicine.
125 Comments
medicine is a noun that refers to any type of medicine or medicines - so that you do not have to be specific whether its a tablet, tablets, capsules, bottles, herb(s) etc. It is a commonly used word in English and this expression is a very natural one in English.
Why a bottle? It could be any amount of any form, really...pills or liquid or whatever...
Sore head??! Why does this system not understand the word 'sore'?! And 'drugstore' instead of 'pharmacy/chemist'...hurts more than microsoft's squiggly line under 'colour', man...
I agree. I live in Scotland and people often say "I have a sore head", instead of "I have a headache", but the meaning is the same.
Damn it, I'm also Scottish. This isn't furthering our argument: now it looks like a wee expression only a handful of Scots use...damn you, Patrick!! :D
Sorry! I actually grew up in England and so I've noticed lots of subtle differences. For example down in the south of England we would contract the phrase "I will not" as "I won't", while in Scotland many people (and now me in fact) contract it as "I'll not"....
I've always said "I won't". Maybe that's from being American though. Perhaps other people say "I'll not" and I've just never noticed. I'll pay attention now!
"Drugstore" is the American word. Duolingo is an American site and uses American English as the primary translation. I would report "sore head" not being accepted.
Nah just playin', it actually accepts 'pharmacy', correction changed it tho when 'sore head' was marked wrong :P I usually call it the 'chemist', but i didnt dare push my luck...
I would have used "chemist" and reported it if not accepted. I've done it on one or two other sentences.
590
Yesss, I am pleased to see that at least one other person is having this issue! (By the way, my phone doesn't show the dates of comments, so this is probably very old and still hasn't been resolved.) I spend hours reporting the word "sore" in these sections. Hopefully someone in power eventually notices :)
This word has the same form in accusative as in nominative, and we use singular form here because we need only one sort of medication - a painkiller. https://ru.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%BA%D0%B0%D1%80%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B2%D0%BE
- 490
I would never expect a discernible difference between лека́рство and лека́рства, no? Yeah, can be bang your head against a wall stuff on the "transcribe what TTS says" sentences, but I fear doing anything about it would require a structural upgrade to all of Duolingo. I think the occurrence of those questions is out of the course creators' control.
EDIT: mods can disable the "transcribe" exercises for sentences where it would be a problem or request that Duo staff add the additional phonetically indistinguishable version to the system.
- 149
Лекарство and лекарства sound the same in Russian, but we say лекарство, meaning "лекарство от головной боли" lit. medicine from headache.
British alternatives must be reported if not accepted. Duo has to learn. Now, wouldn't many of us say "buy some medicine" instead of just "medicine"? Duo accepts if we say "I don't have any potatoes" instead of "I don't have potatoes." It's the same thing.
In this course at least, saying "some medicine" generally equates to using partitive case (usually genitive) which would be "лекарства". This sentence doesn't do that. This isn't a British thing. Americans also might say "buy some medicine". There isn't really much difference, and there isn't much between using partitive or not in the Russian. But one is what was said and the other isn't.
I just assumed that to express your purpose for an action, you would always use чтобы. When is it acceptable not to, or is it just something that is commonly left out?
I put pharmacy instead of drugstore. What's the difference??? My answer was correct!
- 490
A hospital or a grocery store can have a pharmacy, but probably not a drugstore. I leave it to native speakers to address if or how this distinction is manifested in Russian.
- 1039
In my country, big supermarkets and some convenience stores at gas stations have small pharmacies in them. They're not something special, they just offer common medicines
I can see the word "apothecary" in аптека, and i only know what that is because of playing runescape
Yes, and in the Netherlands it's 'apotheek'. After all, we speak 'dutch', which is nearly 'Deutsch' :-), like 'Apotheke' and 'apotheek'. Drugstores... I once thought they are like dutch coffeeshops, selling (soft)drugs. I got over that now :-)
It's also 'apotek' in the Scandinavian languages (Danish, Swedish and Norwegian).
The phrase was so long it came up already translated on the Android app...
In Australia we DO NOT go to “ the drugstore! We go the chemist! Alternatively to a pharmacy. Please amend options!
Please allow “to the chemist” in your options! No drugstores in Australia!
The suggested sentence sounds odd, I wouldn't include the 'I' after 'and', because we already know the subject. I would say "I have a headache and am going to the pharmacy (drugstore is less common where I live) to buy medicine."
This use of the infinitive купить to express purpose: can we do this with every verb to express purpose, or just verbs of motion? E.g. can I say "я ем жить" (I eat to live)?
This is exactly what i wanted to know. When we mean "so as to/for the purpose of," do we just use the infinitive?
"I have a headache and i am going to the pharmacy to buy medicines".
Although medicine has distinct difference between sing/plural, it is still used as plural if talking about unknown substance for an ache/illness. If you know exactly what pill/medicine you are in need of then singular would fit.
I might be wrong but think this is how it generally works both for english and Swedish.
- 490
In my variety of American English at least, "buy medicines" here would be unusually specific. Of course, in principle it's possible if you know you need to buy more than one variety of medicine, but even then, I probably wouldn't generally make the distinction, "medicine" frequently being used as a mass noun. In any case, "лекарство" is singular, which forecloses the plural possibility.
I have: "I have a headache and I'm going to the pharmacy to buy a medicine.", but duolingo considers it to be wrong. Should medicine have been plural? The hints don't suggest so.
- 231
"Pharmacy" is accepted. Itʻs true that the Russian course is slower than many others (e.g. Chinese, Hawaiian) to accept alternate translations, but apparently they do make updates from time to time.
All words were already put for me. It happenwd several times. I just have to click and valid. Anyone else?
I'd like to know if this is a common and correct punctuation; I personally would put a full stop or a semicolon and omit the И between the two clauses
I put "I have a headache and I am going to the drugstore for medicine." and it didn't accept it. Couldn't the fact that you are going to buy it be implied? What I put is how I would normally say it.
That one's interesting, because the Russian sentence explicitly says "buy" and yours doesn't, but yours is the more idiomatic way to say it in English. I'd report it.
- 490
Well if it helps any, I presume you'll never, ever see "у мне." To my knowledge, it would be completely ungrammatical, but I'll leave that definitive judgement to native speakers.
Мне is dative (to me), меня is genitive (of me). The preposition у requires the genitive. You have to learn when to use what case, most prepositions require one specific case, a very short list function with two (sometimes three) cases according to the meaning.
Does болит голова always mean "headache?" If so, how would I say that I have some other sort of pain in my head, like a concussion? Or do other sources of pain always come with their own special words? I'm just thinking that the literal translation in English would be closer to "my head hurts", which could imply more serious problems than a headache.
"... to buy drug", singular is not correct British usage, but "... to buy medicine." is correct. (Native Brit)
- 490
"to buy drug" doesn't work in the U.S. either (0 occurrences in the Corpus of Contemporary American English); if the system is suggesting that, I'd think the relevant sentence should be removed from the list of valid translations.
- 490
It should be fine, although it's one of the nouns that often get a definite article even absent clear context as to which specific one is meant.
Is "my head hurts" wrong? Does "I have a headache" more close to "у меня головная боль"?
- 490
The word "drugstore" is correct and natural in English. Based on the comments I've seen you post, you don't seem to be a native English speaker. Please respect the diversity of the English language.
- 590
"Drugstore" is not ever used outside of USA. It is very difficult for non-American English speakers to complete these lessons when they force the use of a foreign dialect. I agree that the main translation should be "pharmacy", "pharmacist" or "chemist", as these words will be understood by a wider range of English speakers. (It is also more useful for English-learners, because if the word "drugstore" is taught, then you visit UK, for example, you will be unable to make yourself understood. Before reaching this section in Duolingo, I had never heard the word drugstore in my life (as a New Zealander).)
With regards to "respecting the diversity of the English language", it is Duolingo that is failing to do this here, by only accepting answers written in American-English.
- 490
Duolingo teaches American English. It is very clear about that. If learners are specifically interested in the details of another variety, they would presumably be better served to look elsewhere. Duolingo also prefers American English for its suggested translations in courses from English. Hence, "chemist" is a no-go. The word is not merely not used this way in US English, it has the added complication of being a well-known word with a separate meaning. Its use as a synonym of "pharmacy" doesn't even appear in two major US dictionaries I checked. Given Duolingo's dialect preference, "pharmacist" would also be an inappropriate choice. Unlike "go to the doctor," "go to the pharmacist" is not an established idiom in American English.
Having not yet included certain translations is not analogous to implying that another dialect's term is improper simply because one happens to be unfamiliar with it. Translations are missing for any number of reasons. You mentioned issues with "sore" in another post in this thread. I think I've reported a number of translations using "sore" in this very unit. In general, missing translations are simply a part of the Duolingo experience. I've reported missing English translations in both the Hawaiian and Navajo courses despite their creators presumably all having native competence in American English.
Boy, are these guys tight. I forgot the soft sign on купить and the whole thing was marked wrong. Yow.
- 590
I just use speech recognition. It helps avoid typos and also lets you practise pronunciation ;)
- 1039
I literally wrote "У меня болит голова и я иду в аптеку купить лекартсво" and was marked wrong twice. Any ideas where my mistake is?
- 490
If it happens again, get a screenshot. Maybe there’s a letter wrong or a technical glitch. Assuming the later, the screenshot will help with the bug report.
Can you PLEASE give me more than 5 seconds to say a long sentence like this???
Where does "to the drugstore" come from ? It's not mentioned in the russian version of the sentence !
- 262
why is "a medicine" not accepted?? to fail just for that tiny minor thing? this is absurd!
- 343
"My head hurts and I'm going to the pharmacy to buy drugs"
Wrong :( The understanding is there, but the acceptance is not...sadness
- 702
if у меня болит живот is accepted as My Stomach Hurts, why is у меня болит голова rejected as My Head Hurts?
- 590
It's a Duolingo inconsistency. Feel free to report it.
Because these sentences cannot translate perfectly into English, all the following variants should be accepted in their respective exercise:
I have a [headache/stomach ache]
I have a sore [head/stomach]
My [head/stomach] hurts
Another absurdness from Duolingo. Doesn't accept "I have a headache and I'm going to pharmacy to buy medicine" because there is "pharmacy" and "pharmacy" is a "drugstore". Pharmacy is actually more common outside of America. This is the reason I will never buy Duolingo premium. These are not small mistakes to me. These things keep me from learning a language. Change my mind. gg
- 436
Should there be a comma between 'аптеку' and 'купить' (one would be needed if the word 'чтобы' were inserted there)?
''I have a headache and am going to the chemist to buy medicine'' (without the repetition of 'I' before 'going'), should be an acceptable translation; it is better English.
The English sentence feels a little contrived, probably more because of the conjunction, but you could definitely say it. The second "I" is not painfully awkward. Russian could include or drop "я" as well but this sentence included it.
Actually, this sentence sounds a bit awkward in Russian. If I just have decided to go to the chemist and want to say about it to my relatives, I would say "У меня болит голова, схожу в аптеку <за таблетками | купить обезболивающее | купить что-нибудь от головы>". If I am already going to the chemist and someone is calling and asking where I am, I would say "<Иду | Ушел | Пошел> в аптеку за таблетками от головы>
- 590
The replies to this are madness. I don't know what country you are all from, but in New Zealand at least, "headache" is never ever uncountable, no exceptions. "I have headache" just sounds like someone who is not very good at speaking English.
- 490
In anything like common use, this is certainly true. But on recent commercials for headache drugs, it seems like there is an effort to treat 'headache' as uncountable. "For those who suffer from headache..." It sounds very strange, and I suppose there is likely a commercial agenda behind it. Although, it may also just be a longstanding professional use that has never caught on (at all) in common parlance.
For now, I would certainly endorse the decision not to accept it without an article.
We can tell which of us spends all our time watching TV... :-p The usage is somewhat different in that case, I think - it's talking about having headaches regularly, I guess? Even so I would expect the plural there.
It's really "a headache". In other Germanic languages (Dutch, German) it's uncountable. I fell into that trap. In English usage might have varied over time. Strangely, "toothache" had been provided as a counterexample in a forum. While I can imagine several of my teeth aching - so that I can count my "toothaches"-, I can't think so of several of my heads. ;)
- 490
"I have two headaches" sounds... fine - well, except for all that pain.
[in different parts of the head, for example; or, certainly in the past for two separate occurrences]
ETA: fine grammatically (lost my train of thought before) but, yes, the meaning would be... unusual. I can imagine having two sharp pains in the head at two different points and calling it "two headaches" but this is not to imply I've ever heard of anything of the sort.
Well, I can't imagine counting headaches like that. But it does sounds fine to say, e.g. "I often have headaches".
In the US a sore head would likely mean a grudge, or pain from trauma to the head rather than a headache.
Besides referring to one person's bout of suffering, "a headache," the word is the name for the affliction and can be used in the singular or plural, like "migraine." Colloquially we'd probably (in the US) say "I get headaches a lot" or "I have terrible migraines." But you might ask the pharmacist or a doctor, "What would you recommend for migraine."
- 490
Good point. I could see putting the word 'headache' in your final sentence. I recall the line from the commercial was something like "for those who suffer from headache". This still strikes me as well outside common use. Sort of like those scenesters who have taken to stripping the amicable plurale tantum from good ole jeans (only odder).
- 590
Trying to remember the correct words in this whole section is painful. "Sore head" sometimes works, sometimes not; "chemist" is not usually accepted; even "pharmacy" was not accepted here. I've reported about 20 exercises in the last 10 minutes. I hope that these Americanisms get sorted out too, because it makes these exercises doubly difficult for the majority of English-speakers.
Sorry for the rant.
Yes, what is the additional benefit of having this one long setence, rather than two shorter ones.
This sentence has болит as a verb, so голова is accusitive? (as opposed to something like у меня боль головы or голова мне болит which never exist?)
No, in fact голова is nominative and is the subject here. It's like saying "my head hurts".
Right. Accusitive = голову. So 'to me (there is) head (that) hurts'. But never боль головы?
I wouldn't be confident enough to say never. But Google finds 400,000 results for болит голова and only 14,000 for боль головы, none of which that I saw (though I didn't look far) were "у меня боль головы" type sentences.
