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- "Sie ist schlecht."
57 Comments
Duolingo gives three meanings for this word - bad, weak and wicked. I used "She is weak" and got it wrong. I don't understand why.
"Weak" is, as we usually understand it, "schwach" in German, and "bad" is "schlecht". However, depending on the context and the sentence construction the same word can have different meanings. I don't know exactly why Duolingo has chosen "weak" as an alternative, but I imagine it could substitute for bad, as in "that was a weak argument".
why sick is wrong? i put she is sick and they took it as wrong answer.
"She ist schlecht" means "she is bad". If you would like to say "she is sick / unwell" you would say in German "ihr geht es schlecht" (literally: "To her it goes badly"). You might also say "ihr ist schlecht" , which means something like "she doesn't feel well" or "she is nauseous / queasy".
ihr can mean all sorts of things, unfortunately! It all depends on which case it is in and whether there is a noun after it or not...
Have a look at this comment I wrote elsewhere: https://www.duolingo.com/comment/21721534$comment_id=23831061
And hospital is krankenhaus!
No. Hospital is Krankenhaus -- with a capital K. The capitalisation is part of the correct spelling in German.
I also don't get why "sick" is not a part of the correct words in this sentence, as Germans do use it in this context.
What's the meaning of "bad" here? Is is a bad spirit or something like that?
I put she is bad, and they took it as wrong answer... It should be correct
schlecht is pronounced: sh (shower) - le - ch (soft sound as in 'ich') - t
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When you say "as in 'ich'", do you mean as in 'ick' (which is how I would assume to pronounce 'ich') or as in 'itch'? Because I am having the hardest time with the 'ch sound from your throat' like Duo suggests. Thank you!
The ch sound of German ich does not sound like "k".
It doesn't really exist in English, but the closest approximation may be the hy- sound at the beginning of words such as "huge" or "human".
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Imagine you're hissing from the back of the throat. Or when you say "ik", don't stop the air, just let it pass through over the back of the tongue.
Again, why can't you say "it is bad"? Do you need a feminine antecedent to be able to assume this?
It instead of She would be, 'Es ist schlecht'. Translating as 'it' would be incorrect as 'it' assumes genderless or an unknown language essentially losing the subject's biological gender in translation which would be awful for her if she was then mistaken as a male. ;)
Es = it Sie = She/They/You (formal) Er = He
Remember, the genders of nouns are unrelated to that of any biological sex (Ein Mädchen, for example).
I think part of the problem with this sentence is that it has no context. Is it describing her health? Her actions? Her attitude?
Because schlecht means bad, not weak. Weak and bad are not synonyms in Deutsch or English. Perhaps they are synonyms in your native language?
'SchlecKt' is acceptable too?
No. schleckt is a verb form meaning "(he/she) licks", from schlecken, to lick.
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As a native English speaker, I find this sentence very hard to pronounce. "Ist schlecht" is all but impossible for me to say. Any thoughts from native German speakers on how my pronunciation could improve?
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That's a hard one. I'm a native English speaker but my grandmother was German and spoke it around me. I can only tell you that the cht is pronounced at the back of the throat, like a k that doesn't have a full stop, but the air slides over the back of the tongue.
It gets even better I understood that it was She eats wrong/bad, so I put Sie isst schlecht and it was ok ... without telling me that there was a misspeling along the way ;)
What is "horrible" in German?
schrecklick, fürchterlich, furchtbar, entsetzlich are some possibilities.
Confused about Sie again. It is capitalized, so I thought it was you. I guess the verb is singular, so it is she? If it were "Sie sind" I would need to look at capitalization?
The first letter of every sentence is capitalised in German as in English.
So when it's the very first word of a sentence, you can't tell the difference between sie and Sie.
Sie ist schlecht. can only mean "She is bad." because of the verb, but Sie sind schlecht. could mean either "They are bad." or "You are bad." -- you can't tell the difference between those two since sie/Sie is the first word.
If there is something before it, then you can tell again, e.g. Deshalb sind sie schlecht. "That's why they are bad." versus Deshalb sind Sie schlecht. "That's why you are bad.".
I know Schlecht means bad and poor but i don't know the exact meaning of poor in this situation. Does it mean "not rich"?
sie ist schlecht means "she is bad" as in "she is a bad person". "poor" is not really a good translation of schlecht here.
ihr geht es schlecht means "she is doing badly/poorly = her health is not good".
In any event, schlecht has nothing to do with absence of money.
Could this also be interpreted as 'she eats badly'?
No, of course not -- the verb is ist (is), not isst (eats).
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Yes, I am aware of this, I know the difference in meaning and spelling. But as this is a listening question you have to translate what you hear, how do you know that it is 'ist' as opposed to 'isst', as they sound the same? Of course I knew that it meant 'ist' because of the rest of the exercise, but want to know if the other alternative would have been possible
as this is a listening question you have to translate what you hear
Er, what?
I've seen "type what you hear" questions (audio German -> written German) and "translate" questions (written German -> written English), but haven't seen any "translate what you hear" exercises. Are you sure that's what you had? Could you provide a screenshot? (Upload it to a website somewhere -- e.g. imgur -- and tell us the URL.)
want to know if the other alternative would have been possible
In natural German, ist would probably be unstressed (sie ist schlécht) and isst stressed (sie ísst schlècht), but I wouldn't rely on the text-to-speech "robot voice" to make this distinction in a natural way -- the two sentences might well sound completely identical.
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Okay, sorry, I wrote that wrong, it was a write what you hear, and I was wondering if it would be correct to write Sie ist schlecht AND Sie isst schlecht. I didn't try the Sie isst schlecht, as I knew what the exercise was about, but wanted to know if Sie isst schlecht would also be correct just from listening to it. As far as I could hear there was no more stress on either word, so indeed I guess this would be easier to judge in a conversation.
it was a write what you hear, and I was wondering if it would be correct to write Sie ist schlecht AND Sie isst schlecht.
That's a good question.
I don't know of any way to submit more than one correct answer for a listening exercise, and I don't know how listening exercises are graded -- if only against the German sentence or whether there's a bit more "intelligence" that knows about words that are pronounced the same but spelled differently.
