"Он получил пятёрку."
Translation:He received an A.
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If I heard a Russian sentence «Он получил А», I'd think he got a motorcycle driving license (that's not a natural way to say this, but this is the first thing I'd think about if I heard «Он получил A»). And if I've heard «Он получил пятёрку», I'd think he got a mark 5 at school. I think the later is closer to the English sentence.
Even though 5 is no longer the highest mark in Belarus (in fact, 5 is pretty low now), the Soviet system where 5 meant an 'excellent' mark is pretty well-know throughout all the Russian-speaking countries and you'd probably be understood with «Он получи́л пятёрку». And I doubt you'd be understood if you said «Он получи́л A».
As the hover text says, "Пятёрка" is the equivalent of "A" between Russian's grading system and our grading system.
There are more English speaking countries than just America, so one-to-one translate to 'A' would be a bit strange. Why not let the language learner learn about the Russian system, independent from American standards (and thus translate it with 'five').
Of course, we in America are not the only, or even the first, English speaking country! But I can see where the course creators cannot stipulate for every single variant in both Russian and English.
I know duoLingo states that the English course for Russian learners is based on American English, and I would think that that is the case here too since they are related courses. (I'm guessing they chose US English because of our larger population, or perhaps they felt most comfortable with it.)
That being said, I myself also said 5 on this one. We are frequently graded by a number system too. But my attitude is that I don't care too much if I get some questions wrong, what matters is that I am learning what I need to learn.
I agree completely. An "A" in the US system is not the same as an "A" in the British system.
We are here to learn about Russian terminology, not have to learn about each other's educational systems, and then guess which one Duolingo is translating into.
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I second that, in my country best mark you can get is 1 (or 1+) and worst is 5. So as English as my second language, even though I study it for almost 20 years "A" is something I am really not comfortable using.
I am from Czech republic, for anyone wondering.
Well, between Russia's and American MIDDLE/HIGH SCHOOL grading system. Our colleges and universities almost invariably use numeric grades.
But even that aside, this is.not something that needs to be "translated". Russian schools grade 1-5. Leave that alone. It's fine as it is. "Translating" it into A-F letter grades is at least as much wrong as it is right, if not more wrong.
But I try not to use the hover hints unless necessary, and here I'm looking to learn Russian, not American. This still trips me up sometimes, which is annoying. So I'd prefer that a more literal translation at least be accepted.
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There is a lot of discussion here - mostly by people who grew up in Russia - that the answer "He got a 5 should be accepted. I respectfully disagree. The point of translation is to capture the meaning of a sentence in one language and preserve that meaning while using the idioms of the target language. In the USA (where I am a university professor) the A through F grading system is used, so the correct translation of the meaning that he got the highest grade would be "He received an A". Saying he got a 5 is literally correct but wrong because someone who grew up in an English speaking country would not understand what the meaning was. Another example: the correct translation of Я пашу, как лошадь would be "I am working like a dog" and not "I plow like a horse." Anyone who has read my posts knows I'm married to a Russian and some of the funniest things we say to each other result when we try to literally translate a sentence from our mother tongue into our spouse's language. A final example: our nephew Misha lives outside Washington DC. He was speaking to his Russian speaking grandmother (from Riga) and she was laughing at the funny way he was speaking, but my wife realized he was using Russian vocabulary but speaking with English idioms and syntax.
Sorry, I respectfully disagree. Both should be accepted.
We are not translating for the benefit of other English speakers, we are translating to learn Russian.
When I started this skill, I of course read the tips. As a result, when I encountered this, I immediately understood. I think your analysis is backwards - allowing translation as "5" helps me keep in mind a minor aspect of Russian schooling, whereas requiring "A" would nudge me towards cultural solipsism. (I'm being a little humorous here; don't take offense.)
"Solipsism" Now that is an English word way down in the corpus (37252 in google books search). Yandex translates it to Солипсизм, a loan word for sure, but a great definition from Yandex.
— философская доктрина и позиция, характеризующаяся признанием собственного индивидуального сознания в качестве единственной и несомненной реальности и отрицанием объективной реальности окружающего мира. Может рассматриваться как крайняя форма субъективного идеализма.
I haven't seen this example presented as an EN -> RU question. If so it would read, Translate "He received an A" into Russian. The preferred correct answer should be: "Он получил пятёрку.
People have been asking for more levels in Duolingo. Here's an question for the boss level: "Define solipsism in Russian. Argue both for and against."
Haha! Boss level being CEFR level C++ I guess.
Well, full disclosure; I had to look up the English definition of solipsism. I was actually surprised to find it ranked as high as 37252 in the Google corpus. I wasn't satisfied with the Wiktionary definition and I was curious about the Russian translation so I went to Yandex. That was where I found the Russian definition, which when back translated into English, made more sense.
I'm not sure how much Russian I am learning with Duolingo, but I've definitely expanded my knowledge of English (even Canadian English).
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That's why there are "Tips" online on Duolingo website, where you can read such information.
"He got a 5" should be accepted.
It is a correct translation and you as a user of Russian language should know that.
Indeed, and five is an accepted answer. I haven't tried the numeral 5, I've seen numerals deemed as incorrect in other parts of the course.
The preferred / default / first answer is the one that communicates the intent of the example to an AmE speaking student and in this case that would be a letter grade of A.
I realize that my native version of English, as well as that of many using this course for whom English is a second language, is different than American English and that these kind of inconsistencies exist. I am not in the least bit upset that the letter grade of H is not accepted. It was the top mark in the outdated and very regional grading system of my youth in Western Canada.
The course developers understood these differences exist and when they did, they had to decide which would be the preferred correct answer. Other answers are accepted but to retain consistency, the American English translation should always be the preferred when the example is RU to EN.
That is why apartment is preferred over flat, elevator is preferred over lift and bathroom preferred over toilet (or God forbid, loo).
Alberta. Our grading system was H-A-B-C-D with D being a failing grade. The "H" I guess originally meant Honors and may have a British history.
I agree with this line of reasoning. The purpose is to learn the Russian language by relating the idea conveyed into the context of an American English speaker. If we are to become anywhere near fluent in Russian we need to think in Russian, in other words not make a literal translation of 5 to A (or H where and when I grew up in Canada) but to wire our brain to realize that пятёрку is the top mark.
Putting the A in quotation marks makes it wrong - an anomaly with an electronic system that would not occur with a live teacher.
Right you are, Davis.Jeffrey. He got an "A" was deemed incorrect by DL. I will complain.
Should be 5 even if the course is supposed to be based on USA English. We are learning how it works in Russian. It's like that "i'm working like a horse" sentence. At least that one let you translate it literally. Just maintain the meaning in the tips.
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It's a very bad idea to convert the grades like this. The meaning of the word is lost, and it's extra confusing to those who did not go through an ABC grading system. We are learning Russian language, not American(?) school systems.
This is not a correct translation. If a Russian person would speak about ab American getting an A he would say "a" not "5".
I don't fully agree. It depends on audience and context. If I talk in English about my American relatives' grades to people here in Kazakhstan, unless I know that they know about the usual American grading system, I will use numbers rather than letters.
does "пятёрка" only refer to a grade in school ? "five" has been пять up to now
In this particular context I can't imagine it meaning anything else. But in general it's the name for the digit "5" (it's different from "пять" because the latter is a numeral, whereas "пятёрка" refers to the symbol itself). Also it can mean a group of five people or objects (also a bit different from "пять" in that it puts more emphasis on it being a group). And there are some other contextual meanings all related to the number 5 (the Five in playing cards, for example).
I find it hard to understand how a number can have two names.Maybe like "a couple" versus "two", a dozen for twelve ? Does this hold for other numbers as well ?
It's the same for all other digits (not numbers). "единица", "двойка", "тройка", "четвёрка", "пятёрка", "шестёрка", "семёрка", "восьмёрка", "девятка" and technically "нолик" (though the latter is colloquial) - these all are the names of the digits themselves. For example "I drew a 2 on the box" would be "Я нарисовала двойку на коробке", and you'd know that I drew that very symbol - "2" - not some two objects.
As for the other meanings, yes, it is kind of similar to the way how "a couple" works. Incidentally since we have a word for "a couple" - "пара" - we don't use "двойка" for that meaning. But we use "тройка", "четвёрка", "пятёрка", etc. sometimes for the objects that are obviously connected into a single unit.
For example, this is "три лошади":
And this is "тройка лошадей":
In both pictures we have three horses, but in the latter they are a unit called "тройка".
Or, as another example, the movie "The Magnificent Seven" is translated as "Великолепная семёрка" into Russian. We can't use "семь" here, because, 1) it won't make much sense unless we say "seven of what/whom". A numeral usually can't be left hanging like that in Russian. And 2) it would imply simply seven magnificent people, not a magnificent team of seven.
This is another interesting peculiarity (I think exclusive) of Russian language. Apart from that, I do not understand the meaning of "digit" as opposed to "number"
I do not understand the meaning of "digit" as opposed to "number"
A number can consist of several digits. For example "347" is a number consisting of tree digits: 3, 4 and 7. (Of course, I'm a native Russian speaker, not English, so I'm not sure how strict this distinction is in English. But at least that's what I meant.)
Now I realize the obvious difference. Probably the absence of articles in Russian is one af the reasons why digits have a name, as shown by your example about "a 2" on the box: in Eglish the "a" eliminates any doubt. It is interesting their use as collective numbers and also the fact of being all feminine (except нолик, I suppose to be 0)
That's subjective, if you're going off certain scales it could be "Outstanding" as opposed to "Excellent". Someone might think a B is an excellent grade because they were used to getting D's and F's...
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Oh, you're right. I was thinking about the "official" verbal definitions for each grade but I guess they too do differ between countries and educational institutions.
We should not say A. Because a large part of learners here are not native English and their school systems use different grading systems
It should accept both "A" and "5", because the primary goal here is to check whether you understood the Russian. The suggested translation is "A" because the course is primarily oriented toward Americans, as they warned us. But I don't think it will confuse people.
Where should they draw the line with free translations? IIRC, "He got an A" is accepted; that and the official translation are much closer to the Russian.
That wasn't a rhetorical question, by the way. What would be your criteria? (even if we ignore the shortage of volunteer moderators...)
Did you phrase your answer in the form of a question? The exercise is a statement, not a question nor an exclamation. I don't know what Duo does with punctuation but if you added a question mark, that could be the problem.
From what I know, Duo mostly ignores punctuation, except for the quotation marks, which it for some reason treats as characters. So if the accepted answers in Duo's base don't have them, Duo will count adding them as a mistake and vice versa. Try reporting it.
You could also say in English "He has an A"but not accepted as correct here
I've never heard that. It should be "He got an A", and that's probably accepted.
Congratulations! Received is the correct English word. Not "got" as I expected.
While Duo ignores punctuation for the most part, for some reason it sees quotation marks as characters and it won't accept an answer that has them if the answer in its database doesn't, and vice versa. That's probably the reason.
