"יש לו מסטיק."
Translation:He has chewing gum.
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It's Latin, who got it from Greek/ not surprising. About 50-60% of English is from Latin, and about 90% for romance languages.
Yes, the source is Greek μαστιχάω grind the teeth, which Latin took over as masticāre to chew.
"He has a gum" isn't the most natural choice. If it is just one piece you say "he has a piece of gum" and not "he has a gum". But "he has gum" should be accepted too.
I disagree, only because if someone said I can't find gum, or I really want gum, you'd respond: he has gum. .. Then you might go over and ask for a piece of gum. (Or can I have some gum.) It's like sliced bread, you'd say I have bread, or I have cake,.. But then discuss specifics.
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In English we don't say it that way. We say "He has gum," "He has chewing gum," "He has a piece of gum," or "He has a piece of chewing gum." If you say he has "a gum" it doesn't sound right and it might make people wonder you're talking about the part of the mouth that teeth are attached to.
Two different words which are pronounced the same /lo/: לא = no, לו = to him (or in this case part of the יש ל construct).
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From the USA, a basic Google search for "bubble gum" (with quote marks) got About 23,200,000 results; the search for "bubblegum" (with quote marks) got About 33,500,000 results. For just news sites, "bubble gum" got About 54,200 results, and "bubblegum" got About 94,400 results. Bubblegum wins on websites.
A basic Google Books ngram search in English texts gives the win to bubble gum. Breaking that down, bubble gum wins in American English books, while bubblegum wins during recent years in British English books.
2020-03-12 rich739183
Why it not accepted 'has' gives me mistake with 'has got' as correct answer?!
Why did it reject His gum and give as an answer 'He's gum' which is not correct English
I cannot complete the lesson due to this bug - it not accepting it's own correct answer!!!
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2019-08-30 rich739183
In this case it's not lo לא, but lo לו. Like their/there or right/write, they are words that sound the same but mean different things. (What's called a homophone).
In this case, יש לו = he has (yesh = there is+ lo = to him) If you wanted to say there isn't = אין / ein (So it would be a different word). Or "he doesn't have" = ein lo = אין לו.
This is in the tips and notes. Do you need help finding them?
(*Learning Hebrew too, but a bit a head of you.)