101 Comments
Yeah I was wondering the same thing and started to look at the comments to see what was really up with the translation.
I've never seen 'unter' used like this. It is really interesting to see it used this way. It's fun to see which prepositions other languages use.
Is a doctor under us? If the sentence means to say among us why is this answer accepted?
I agree, it should not teach us the wrong usage. When someone types that answer (like I did as well) it should be flagged with a note like a spelling or accent error. That way we learn and move forward. Saying that you have a doctor or any person under you in English implies that they are working for you as a subordinate. As if you are their boss which is a completely different meaning than this DL sentence.
I like that - don't mark it wrong for typing what it literally correct, but providing the correct meaning as well.
It does also mean "is there a doctor under us", as far as I know. In any case, Duolingo tells you the more plausible translation even if you enter the literal one. I think it's a general policy to accept all valid translations, even the unlikely ones -- and given the bizarre nature of some of DL's sentences, that's only fair.
I've never heard "unter" used in this manner- to mean "among". I agree that if it is supposed to mean among us, it should alert. I don't always read the translation when it a green bar since I assume I am correct.
It would be good to someday see something that shows how different prepositions are used. I would never have thought this would have been correct given my understanding of unter.
1534
Just a note to say that this is the first time I've had this lesson. I'm impressed that after over a thousand days of using DuoLingo at least four lesson groups a day to learn German, I STILL get get new sentences pretty much every day. A LOT of work went into this program....
In English, I think many people would say "Is there a doctor in the house" - which is either idiomatic or a pop culture cliche. I suppose "Ist da ein Arzt im das Haus?" would sound crazy to a native German speaker?
I've never heard that, but I think the more correct German would be "Ist im Haus ein Arzt?"
You'd have to say "Gibt es einen Arzt im Haus?". You could also say "Ist ein Arzt im Haus?" or "Befindet sich ein Arzt im Haus?". I'd say "Ist jemand von Ihnen Arzt?" sounds the most natural.
Yea, I've never been 100% on if es gibt takes accusative.. but now I know. My German friend told me the version most natural to him would be ist im Haus ein Arzt, guess it just depends. Like your jemand von ihnen version would best fit if a bunch of people were surrounding a sick/injured dude
It's not idiomatic. When people say it they are literally asking if there is a doctor in the building.
I would say in German: "Gibt es im Haus einen Arzt?" (Is there a doctor in the house?)
'unter uns' ~the doctor is in the circle of people. 'bei uns' ~the doctor stands next to the group of people.
Because the question focus on a doctor in the circle to get very quickly help, it is better to ask 'unter uns' to wake up the people standing around the person, who asked for help.
- 1426
You'd have to figure it out by context. In most cases, only one really makes sense, or at least, one makes more sense than the other. And, when it's confusing, ask.
This is probably my english not being great but would "Is there a doctor amongst us?" be a correct translation of this as well?
That sounds a little odd to me, I would usually say "among us." But I'm not clear on the rules for when one would use amongst vs among.
Im a UK speaker, I automatically entered 'amongst' but was rejected as an answer though
I'm not from the UK but I learned mostly British English when I was studying. I have been marked wrong for words like 'colour' several times, although it doesn't happen anymore after my many reports.
I think words like "colour" vs "color" should be able to be used interchangeably, or at least give you the typo notification.
- 799
Organizations that provide spell check of any kind almost always use prebuilt third party libraries. Most of the easily available English language ones are U.S. English.
Duo will add constructions to the library over time as the number of reports draws their attention. Of course, taking time out to include non U.S. usage takes time away from other efforts to make improvements. Therefore they do not appear to deem it a priority to make such accommodations.
northernguy, there are lots of libraries containing both. And the time spent adding these variant forms as new sentences are created, or the lack of them is reported by users, is negligible.
Yeah, I'm from Texas, and I haven't heard anyone say "amongst" in normal conversation. Must be a Britishism.
- 1426
I'm from Texas, and I've heard amongst and said amongst. I prefer among in most situations, though.
yeah, well, if you want to sound a bit educated "snoddy" then you say "amongst". But if they are so snoddy, why aren't they a doctor themselves and shouldn't have to ask...lol.
- 248
I've never heard of anyone saying "Is anyone under us" here in the US before, to ask if anyone is "among" us.
and i have been using both interchangeably since ever,(inspite of a british english education), confused about the differences between them. i always used amongst for literary effect, now i know why. thanks.
I'm a UK speaker. I use either amongst or among, though some might say amongst sounds a little archaic. My tendency is to use amongst with a following vowel to make the elision easier, though it's not a rule.
From Northeast US. I typically hear and use "among" but "amongst" definitely sounds just as right. I wouldn't place any discernible difference between the two.
- 1426
It's just something that you'll have to clear up with context. The grammar's the same in either case. There's a duolingo sentence on here that says: "Wir sind unter Frauen." Now, supposing there are actually no women above you, or possibly on the top floor of the building but there's no reason even to mention women on a higher floor, then most likely it will be the 'among' unter. But, if you are in the room with one other dude, and you hear noises from upstairs, then "Wir sind unter Frauen" would most likely be the 'under/below' unter.
"unter" has another meaning besides "under, below, beneath"....it can also mean "among, between, in the midst of" so now we can (English ears) understand the phrase *Is there a doctor -among/in the midst of -us! You can check this at t https://www.dict.cc/?s=unter Just an odd way Duolingo threw this in without other reflections to bring this point out
Problem here is people are trying to be too literal with the translation into English. "Unter" means "under" in German but used in the above sentence, it means something else. In the sample sentence, this is just the way Germans indicate proximity of a person. "Ist ein Artz unter uns" - can be translated to "is there a doctor here/with us/among us". Simple. Really no further explanation needed.
Don't take it so literally. In English we say idiomatic or quirky things all of the time and they wouldn't translate word for word into German very well at all. Try making sense of the following phrases in a literal fashion or translated into German:
"I'm getting my snack on." "He flew by the seat of his pants." "What the hell?"
Lesson (repeated): quit taking things so literally. You will be stuck forever "learning" German rather than integrating it into natural usage.
Unter is a two way preposition....it is accusative if movement to a place is involved. Dative if there is no movement.
Wir gehen ins Kino (we go into the movies) - Accusative Wir sind im Kingo (We are at the movies) - Dative
Goggle translator gives dative (when "them" gives ihnen instead of "sie"); not that it might imply whether it is correct or not
don't use google translator for this kind of stuff! you can never be sure of the result it gives. use it for translating 1 word only.
I am almost sure of the response, but however :D. Here "uns" is dative right? Thank you Duolingo people!
What's the difference between "unter" and "zwischen" in the meaning "among"?
- 1426
'zwischen' is more like 'between' -- you use 'between' rather than 'among' when there are only two people. The 'zwi-' in zwischen comes from 'zwei'.
And, 'unter' is more like 'among' -- you use 'among' rather than 'between' when there are more than two people. But, you can also use 'unter' to mean 'between' sometimes: "unter uns gesagt -- between you and me"
Most Japanese English teachers will encourage their students to use "among", in that "amongst" sounds archaic.
Duolingo had me thinking that you're not meant to put the indefinite article (ein) before an occupation. Why is this correct?
That's only true when you're talking about somebody's past, present, or future occupation in sentences of the kind Peter war Arzt, Hans ist Lehrer und Julia wird Wissenschaftlerin.
It's not the case that indefinite articles are always omitted before occupations; only when you're describing the role that somebody has, as the complement of that sort of sentence with sein "to be" or werden "to become".
I'm English. I put the literal translation: under . But what does that mean? 'Is there a doctor under us.' Thanks.
- 1426
Maybe you're on the top floor of a building, and you hear strange drilling noises and screams from the floor below, and you're asking if perhaps there's a doctor operating on a patient in the floor below: Is there a doctor under us?
or, maybe you're on top of a big pile of people, and one of you is hurt, and you're wondering if perhaps you're standing on top of a doctor who might be able to help: Is there a doctor under us?
But, the normal understanding would be to translate this as: Is there a doctor among us?
Could anyoke help me with 'es gibt' 'and gibt es?' I know it means 'there is' or 'there are'. But when do I use 'es gibt' when 'gibt es'?
- 1426
"gibt es" would be used when forming a question, or when you put something other than 'es' before the verb in a sentence. "Es gibt ..." would be the standard "There is ..." construction, with 'es' in first position before the verb in second position.
"Gibt es einen Arzt in der Nähe?" -- "Is there a doctor nearby."
"In der Nähe gibt es einen Arzt." -- "There is a doctor nearby." -- "Es gibt einen Arzt in der Nähe."
- 799
You can start by thinking about when you choose between ...is there..... and ....there is.... when speaking English.
This confused me quite a bit. I would never say "Is there a doctor under us?" unless by some coincidence, I was asking if we had a doctor working under us (a resident/intern perhaps)? But it seems like an odd way to phrase such a question.
Idiomatic rurn of phrase. No logic just a certain way that sheep got used to bleeting.
"Is a doctor under us?" Can someone help me understand why Germans would say it like this?
“Is a doctor among us?”
Sounds like a reasonable thing to say.
Your mistake may be thinking that unter can only mean / be translated to “under”.
Prepositions often have multiple meanings; someone giving a talk on books isn’t standing on those books while talking, for example.
"unter" means "under", not "among". It should have been "zwischen", or I am wrong?
- 1426
"Ist ein Arzt zwischen uns?" would be "Is a doctor between us?".
So, "zwischen" would be wrong if you wanted to mean "among". It would be right if you wanted to mean "between".
"Is a doctor below us" was accepted for me, but ot still seems nonsensical.
That's not good English. "Is there a doctor" would be better, or "Are there any doctors" (although the latter might be too much of a drift away from the sentence we were asked to translate).
- 756
I think that sounds ok. "in our midst" or "among us" is all the same to me. I would guess it is just not an expected answer.
But 'unter' means 'under' or 'among'? Is this an idiomatic german sentence that have to be translated with 'among'?
In this context 'unter' means 'among'. It is not idiomatic, it is simply preposition use.
- 1460
Is there any doctor among us is also correct. i disagree that in this case the only correct answer is :Is there a doctor among us. Am I not right?
- 1426
In that case, it would have to be 'einen Arzt', since there the doctor is 'being given' by 'it' - so, accusative: "Gibt es einen Arzt unter uns?"
There is not "there" in the german sentence. Is it implied.
Also. Should it be like this
Is da ein Arzt unter uns?
- 1426
I don't believe the 'there' in the English is the location-"there", but rather the existence-"there is". So, it seems like matching German translations for this existence-"there is" would be:
"Gibt es einen Arzt unter uns?" and "Ist ein Arzt unter uns?"
Also, the 'there' in the English translation is actually not even necessary: "Is a doctor among us?" has exactly the same meaning as "Is there a doctor among us?"
ein translates as "one", but it means "a" here? it wasnt like that in the first couple of lessons .. gg
Eins is a number, ein is a preposition. If someone says "ein Haus" you could translate it as "a house" or "one house" because you can't really say "einS Haus" in German. Also, "a house" means it's just one house, not more of them (you can't say "a houses"). Would love if somebody could confirm what I've just said since I'm not 100% sure about all this.
You're right, it would be either ein Haus or just Häuser, and "one" or "a" are both represented by "ein" in that example.
Why isn't medic accepted? They need the pride of being called by their doctorate?
In English, medic and doctor are two different words describing two different professions. The same applies to German.
Do you know how to say medic in German. I do WWII reenacting, and I go as a combat medic.
Perhaps 'der Kampf-Mediziner' ? There might be a better, more idiomatic expression...
