"Il travaille au tribunal."

Translation: He works at the tribunal.

[albans]

It is perfectly OK to say he works at court. As...he is at court, he is in court.

[kingofeggs]

I agree, submitted

[elle1468]

I agree, but duo is still requiring the definite article "the".

[chgalic]

I agree!

[whoapanda]

Why not "He works at the courthouse"?

[Faranae]

"Courthouse" would be "palais de justice". "Tribunal" refers to the system, concept, or jurisdiction, not the physical building. There's a similar difference in English. "He needs to appear in court" is said rather than "in/at the courthouse". The implications are different as well. "He works for the court" could mean a judge or lawyer, but not a janitor. "He works for the courthouse", could certainly mean a janitor but less likely a judge.

[DianaM]

Larousse and WordReference both seem to feel that un tribunal could be either a court or a courthouse.

http://www.larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais-anglais/tribunal/78559

http://www.wordreference.com/fren/tribunal

"He works at the courthouse" is now accepted, btw.

[AnCatDubh]

In that case, ‘He works in court’ is the best translation.

[jjmandeville]

A 'tribunal' in UK is an event, a hearing of evidence. One appears as a witness at a tribunal, or one works on a tribunal. However, one does work at a court, which can be a building.

[sam.hewitt]

What's wrong with "He works in court"? I had it corrected to "He works in THE court". I understand the article is included in the "au", but is that really the sense of the French; that we are specifying a particular court?

[medredaboulaich]

since "au" = (en+ le/la) you have to use the article THE.
"au" = "at the" here.

[DianaM]

No you don't. The direct translation is not always the correct one. If it were that easy, we could all just use Google Translate and it would work perfectly - haha!

[SimonKriszti]

why is "he works in court" incorrect? a lot of times duolingo doesn't ask for an exact word to word translation and the english equivalent to "travaille au tribunal" = "works in court" is totally correct and means exactly the same...

[modernhippie]

Why is the feminine "travaille" used here instead of the masculine "travail"... after all, "il" indicates that the subject is masculine so shouldn't the verb be masculine as well?

[Andrew48]

It's not feminine, it's a verb. But you probably know this by now.

[modernhippie]

Thanks. Yes I do know that now but at the time the "lle" had confused me since it can indicate that an adjective is feminine.

[comqrgo]

Dl refused to accept at the courts. Courts is one of those words that like the baths is always plural in UK English unless you mean the royal court

[frankie100828]

Yes i put he is working at court and was marked wrong..

[UnaDonna213779]

So 'court' is fine in other sentences but not this one. Another inconsistency...Duolingo is rife with them.

[JimJuette1]

We don't use tribunal in Canada to mean court in general. A tribunalnis a specific formation.