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- "Такси уже стоит возле гостин…
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"The taxi is already at the hotel" is accepted, and IMO, that may be a superior translation because "the taxi is already near the hotel" suggests the taxi is still driving towards the hotel, contradicting 'стоит'.
I completely agree.
"The taxi is already near the hotel" is something I could say on the phone form the taxi, on my way to a rendezvous at the hotel, or else looking at my phone app tracking the taxi arrival in real time. Both the Russian sentence and your suggested translation rule this scenario out.
Double that! "The cab is already near the hotel" is not accepted
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Interesting note.... Both taxi and cab are short for the full original word "taxicab". Famously people try to say the word taxi is an exception to the rule that words almost never end in i in english.
I wrote: The taxi is already standing near the hotel. I think that this also is a correct translation.
AFAIK, cars don't "stand" in English - that's a literal translation from Russian. Curiously enough, in English they "sit": "The taxi is sitting ...", although in this particular sentence it's not needed. Either simply "is" or "is waiting" would be the best translations.
Most hotels have a taxi stand, so I expected the question to be about the taxi stand, not a taxi.
In this sentence doesn't гостиницы mean hotelS and shouldn't it be hotel not hotels? If this sentence is correct can someone please explain to me why it is
- 1398
The sentence is correct as Duolingo has presented it.
Because of возле, гостиница must become genitive singular: гостиницы. Genitive singular гостиницы just happens to match nominative plural. :) That is actually one of the nice things about regular feminine nouns - nominative plural and genitive singular match forms.
Genitive plural is гостиниц.
I wrote "There is already a taxi near the hotel" but was marked as wrong. Isn't that an acceptable translation of стоит?
Which part of your sentence implies that the taxi is stationary, and is not merely approaching the hotel? The Russian original is unambiguous about it.
FYI: "The taxi is already at the hotel" is accepted. So are "The taxi is already waiting/standing by/nearby the hotel."
- 1398
This sentence, "Такси уже стоит возле гостиницы," refers to singular taxi instead of plural taxis. Thus, we would say, "A taxi is..." or "The taxi is...."
Granted, in Russian, такси is non-declinable - which means that whether I was referring to multiple or singular taxis, I would always use the word такси. See declension table here. However, if there were multiple такси, then I suspect I would use the word стоят - see conjugation table here. Он/такси стоит, while они/такси стоят.
I thought hotel singular ended with an “a,” and plural ended with a “ы.” I’m trying to follow the rules but they don’t seem consistent.
You are correct. See https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D0%B3%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B8%D1%86%D0%B0 for confirmation.
However, возле takes genitive, which is the same as the nominative plural....
Not good sentence because in russian this could be translated as: Такси уже у гостиницы. Такси уже стоит у гостиницы. Такси уже ждет у гостиницы. Такси уже ожидает у гостиницы. It would be better to translate in russian without any verbs
- 1398
From this discussion page which we are on, I hear гостиницы. You may indeed have heard some questionable audio on some of the exercises - it happens. If you plainly hear -ца instead of -цы, I recommend that you report the audio as incorrect.
Here is duo's dictionary entry, with audio, for гостиницы, and here is their entry for гостиница. The shift in sound is subtle, but it exists.
I had the Russian word puzzle. No difference audible, and I even got a correct Even though I used гостиница...
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Why is it marked wrong to put "already" at the end of the English sentence. Many examples in DL where this sort of placement seems arbitrary
Probably, but "The taxi is already by the hotel"="Такси уже у гостиницы."
Besides, see petrenko's comment above: while your translation is not worse than the suggested translation, both are far inferior to "at the hotel".
No, they mean essentially the same thing in English. There is not enough context in the original sentence to tell exactly which is the superior translation.
Without "стоит", there is no indication that the taxi is stationary. It could simply be a statement about the current location of a moving taxi.
I simply don't understand why do you give three typos; is worth, standing, and stands, if none of them is used?
Actually, it can be either, depending on the rest of the sentence. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D0%B3%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B8%D1%86%D0%B0 shows that it's genitive singular, or a couple of plural options.
In this case, https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D0%B2%D0%BE%D0%B7%D0%BB%D0%B5 shows that "возле" needs the genitive case, so it's just one hotel here.
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Quite! See https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D0%B2%D0%BE%D0%B7%D0%BB%D0%B5 for confirmation, if any be needed....
- 577
For I don't know how many lessons and quesions I have been using 'cab' with no problem. Suddenly in this lesson it gets marked wrong. what kind of software is Duolingo using?
My assumption is that Duolingo is using regular expressions to match our free-form inputs for scoring. I've wondered about the course authors' view before: it wouldn't be fun to enter all alternatives in one giant regular expression but it would be mean beyond belief to not provide a way to input regular expressions at all (ie require every allowed alternative to be listed directly).
For this sentence I would expect the regular expression to look like, at least in part:
^the (taxi|cab) is already (near|by|at) the hotel$ ^the (taxi|cab) is (near|at|by) the hotel already$
And so on.
When a user submits a new suggested translation there is probably an interface for "add this specific sentence" and probably a way to edit the regular expressions directly.
It's inevitable that less-common words won't be accepted everywhere. If you're sure of your translations then hit the report button. Sometimes my suggestions are accepted the next day and sometimes it's months later.
