66 Comments
"•The kings write the letters. •The kings are writing the letters.
You missed 1 correct translation!"
Am I crazy, or wouldn't the latter be "Los reyes estan escribiendo las cartas"?
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lago -- The king's are writing the letters. can be translated into Spanish as either "Los reyes escriben las cartas." OR "Los reyes estan escribiendo las cartas."
The present tense "escriben" can be translated as: "they (or you plural) write" or "they (or you plural) are writing" or they (or you plural) do write.
if the present tense can mean both, than why does the -ing from even exist?
Well I guess there are tenses in English which are replaced more often than not but are still used formally
The regular form is the plain present tense, the -ing form is the present progressive. The present progressive indicates a current ongoing action, whereas the normal present indicates habitual or brief action, notice how "I am fishing" sounds different from "I fish"
We are all entitled to our opinions about what should or should not be. I am simply sharing what Spanish grammar books, and Mexican and Argentine Spanish teachers, have pointed out to me. If you ask me how I spend my weekend, I can say "Estudio espanol," studying Spanish. That does not mean I spend every minute at it. If you call me on the phone and ask me what I am doing, I can say "Estoy estudiando espanol," I am studying Spanish.
The Spanish book I have before me now gives three translations of "hablo:" I speak, I am speaking, and I do speak.
If I understand correctly, the Spanish 'reyes', is ambiguous - it could be two or more kings, or a combination of kings and queens. I think 'monarchs' captures the ambiguity better than kings, much like 'siblings' for 'hermanos,' but it was not accepted.
- 529
I typed in kings and it corrected me to rulers. Without context, king should be accepted
In Spanish the present tense, "escriben," for example, is often translated as a gerund, an "ing" verb. The present progressive tense "estan escribiendo" is used only when there is an emphasis on the fact that something is being done RIGHT NOW!
The present tense SHOULDN'T be translated as a gerund... "The kings are writing letters" carries the same emphasis, that it is being done at that exact moment.
I have to agree with rspreng. Obviously I'm still learning as I would assume you two are as well, but this is what I remember learning in school, and present tense can often translate into our ing words.
@ jbokhari, I agree. My text book says that if the "kings aren't writing" in THAT very minute, present tense MUST be used. There is nothing in this sentence that says they are writing at that moment, so Present Tense it is! Question: Who writes the letters to the Pope? Answer: The Kings are writing the letters, or The Kings write the letters. It can be translated either way to English, If one could know the context of sentence it would be easier to determine what tense to use. English Present Progressive is sometimes used different from Spanish.
I wondered the same since we have been tought we have to include the article even when we mean refer to 'letters' in a general way.
'The kings write letters' I expected to correct as well.
One of the translations of 'reyes' that DL provides is 'precious'. So why can't we say 'the precious write the letters' which seems more poignant to me.
In English, the definite article is optional. Omitting it should not be counted wrong.
I agree - who would say the kings (or monarchs) write the letters? Unless of course, in Spanish, the article is included or omitted in the same manner
Whose job is it to write to the council next week? The kings write the letters. I can argue for both sides
I don't think it has to be a choice. They both could be correct, depending on the context. English often uses the present progressive when Spanish uses the simple present. That's just the way it is. A common example is ¿Qué haces? = "What are you doing?" I've heard and used this countless times. And, yes, it could also be "What do you do?"; it depends on the context.
It is rare to hear ¿Qué estás haciendo?. I'm not saying never; it's just not as common. The progressive form in Spanish does mean the same as in English, but it's used much less frequently and more for emphasis than anything else.
The present progress in Spanish is NOT always used the same in English. Present Progressive is used in Spanish when you want to answer or ask 'what is the subject doing at that very moment'. It is when one is in the mist of doing something RIGHT NOW! Other wise the simple present tense must be used in Spanish.
Agreed.
My comment :" The progressive form in Spanish does mean the same as in English, but it's used much less frequently and more for emphasis than anything else." was not intended to contradict this.
For me the sentence is OK. According what I've learned, if the sentence was "Los reyes estan escribindo las cartas", then I'd translate as "The kings are writing the letters." There are different rules for English grammar and Spanish grammar.
In some sentences while the article 'the' or 'a' is written in Spanish it is not always translated in English. And also the other way around not written in Spanish and yet translated into the English. Is there a way of knowing when to use or not to use the word 'the' or 'a'
- 1222
How many kings are there? And who are they writing letters to? Have these people heard of an e-mail or a fax machine?
In some it says cartas means letters and others it says cartas is wallets so which one is it
I wrote "The king and queen write letters"!!!!!!!! BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!1
Technically, the English translation is "the letters". But in normal circumstances, we native English speakers wouldn't include the word "the". We would say "the letters" instead of "letters" when there were definitely some particular letters that were the topic of conversation and the kings were writing them instead of someone else writing them. It's a subtle nuance but omitting "the" sounds more natural in English.
Before I've been able to use either cards or letters for cartas, but for some reason it is wrong on this question.
Carta means a letter, not a card, unless you're talking about playing cards which are not written but, as the name implies, played :)
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarjeta_de_felicitaci%C3%B3n
That's the Spanish wikipedia page for "greeting card."
Tarjeta is used, as you can see. As I said, carta means letter or playing card. Tarjeta is used for greeting cards as well as, I believe, business cards.
According to the Talking Translation and Dictionary app, "carta" means: letter, card, carte, menu, charter, epistle, map, playing card.
I'm confused because if you "peek" at the definition of reyes, it says that it can be kings or pets. So I put "pets" just for fun, and it said that pets was wrong. I think it's just because pets cannot write letters, but then why would they put it on there?
Well, it's frustrating, but those "peeks" work more like a dictionary. You can look something up, but often there are choices one has to make; not all of the words listed are appropriate for the particular task at hand. What's worse is that sometimes the right definition/translation for the particular exercise is not even listed by DL in the "peek". (I am not taking a shot at DL; I just want to tell it like it is so that others won't feel like they're doing something wrong.)
What you are expressing is not even close to "taking a shot". It does, however, qualify as constructive criticism and the producers of DuoLingo would do well to address this particular error in order to improve the effectiveness of this program as a learning tool.
- 1645
Speaking of Spanish royalty, I recommend "Isabel," the Spanish TV series, available on Hulu Plus in the US, with English subtitles. Great for absorbing the sound and rhythm of the language, and you get some historical insight too. Dos pulgares encima.
Where did the T come from in front of "reyes" ? I keep losing hearts because of poor pronunciation.
so, this section is supposed to teach us about "occupations" and I personally don't think many of us need to speak about Kings and Queens all that often! How about teach us more common jobs?
I put the king and queen, as my dictionary said, for "los reyes" and it was marked wrong! Surely, I thought, they must be expecting that as "the kings" is completely bonkers!
It is correct to translate 'los reyes' as 'the king and queen' so why does the system say it is wrong.
For those of us who are MLB fans and in particular- new york mets, florida marlins and toronto blue jay fans- it makes sense why Jose Reyes was such a good player back in the day. Jose Kings!
After listening to Dutch for an hour, I feel like a fluent master when I understand a Spanish sentence after one listening XP
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Why is the first "The" necessary in the English translation? It seems to me that the statement remains the same with or without it. Just wondering.
If 'the kings write the letters' is accepted, but reyes could be either kings or queens or a mixture- how come 'the royals write the letters' isn't accepted?
