26 Comments
Need not. For "must not" you should use "dürfen nicht", see christian's answer here: http://duolingo.com/#/comment/171892
Same here. That probably shouldn't be accepted. Unfortunately, the report button has now "My sentence shouldn't be accepted." option.
for the English speaker muss nicht and darf nicht seem to be swapped over must not = darf nicht, but if you remember that "must" is part of the verb with the infinitive "to have to" then it makes sense
I wrote 'you mustn't go right away' and it was accepted as correct, but the DL answer doesn't mean the same at all. So this leaves me a little confused, but further research suggests that I was wrong, and that the sentence denies that there is any obligation to leave, rather than saying that there is an obligation not to leave. (Though apparently some native speakers are sloppy about this.)
10
As far as I know "must" ~ "have to" and "must not" ~ "may not". German "müssen" ~ "must" but "nicht müssen" ~ "not have to" and "nicht dürfen" ~ "must not".
- 10
"they" should be okay. Maybe they didn't like the "go"? In such a context "gehen" means "weggehen" (= leave).
- 106
An Americanism I suspect. Despite their attempts to correct things like US spelling they do slip up on colloquial or ordinary usage in other parts of the English speaking world. The lack of a way to report errors like this is one of the more irritating features of an otherwise excellent way to learn.
- 106
In Australia and the UK "go" is more commonly used than leave in this situation. The Americans I know are more likely to say "leave". The distinction is blurring though.
That's hilarious. I use both, probably "go" more than "leave", but if I had to guess I would have put money on "go" being more common in the States and "leave" being more common in the Commonwealth. But I'm Canadian, so we get a very unhealthy mix of "UK English" and "American English" which can cause some confusion at times.
@professorjd
I didn't call her comment hilarious. What I thought was funny was that I would have thought the opposite of what helen said was true, as I indicated:
...if I had to guess I would have put money on "go" being more common in the States and "leave" being more common in the Commonwealth.
But thanks for your input.
- 182
Actually, they have a way to report it. However, that mechanism is only available on the web version. Right under the answer, you can "report" problems, among them that your answer should be correct, and that there's an issue with the answer as they've presented it.
Definitely not standard usage lol. It's said, but they can't predict 100% of the answers people would give. Just stick to the more standard textbook usage and you should be fine.
They have not to go right away. In the sentence Sie refers as They since the verb müss is in plural.
- 141
Here "Sie müssen" can be "They have to" AND "You (formal!) have to" as well.
It can't be "She has to", because that'd be "Sie muss".
Without context or "Sie" being not the first word of the sentence you can't say if it is meant to be "they" or (formal) "you".
Only sentences like "Ich denke, dass sie nicht sofort gehen müssen." or "Ich denke, dass Sie nicht sofort gehen müssen." are unambigous.
