"לא קוראים לי יוסי."
Translation:My name isn't Yossi.
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This sentence literally means : (They) don't call me Yossi ( קוראים- they call) so לי is pretty much like the word "me"
I said the same thing "They dont call me Yosi" and they always mark me wrong. Either answer shoiuld be accepted.
They will accept "I am not called Yossi." If you wanted to translate your sentence into Hebrew, it would be "הם לא קוראים לי יוסי." In this case you would be talking about particular people, not people in general.
Is ‘לי’ in the accusative, like ‘mich’ in German? And why does ‘לא’ come first?
The pronoun לי is in the dative, actually. The Hebrew verb לקרוא can mean either "to call" or "to read". When it is used to mean "call" it takes an indirect object (dative case) while when it is used to mean "read" it takes a direct object (accusative case).
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You can't translate prepositions literally. לי stands for "me" in English. You can't say "to me" because that is not the preposition English uses in instance and you can't use any other preposition in Hebrew, because ל is the one that this verb takes when we talk about calling. Also, it doesn't mean "mine". What is it exactly that belongs to me? That might be correct if we had a sentence השם שלי, but not here.
No. If you want say that you need the pronoun הם ( 'They') . so it should be : הם לא קוראים לי יוסי
The confusion is probably due to the word קוראים which means 'are calling' but it used to indicate that generally all the people call him Yossi since it's his name.
That's how you can introduce yourself in Hebrew : (your name) קוראים לי
Hope it helps!
"One calls me" is a possible statement in English. In daily speech I would say "they call me" nevertheless, but meaning the same non-stressed they. I'm not sure whether this should be rejected as an answer.
If somebody asks for your (real) name, BasCostBudde, you truly respond "They call me ____"? A native English speaker would not.
One thing I find annoying about this Forum is that every time I point out that a phrase is not idiomatic English, my comment gets downvoted, sometimes multiple times.
What's up with that?
Unfortunately Duolingo Hebrew is only available through English as the base language, and so anybody wanting to use it must use the English interface, which occasionally causes problems for non-native English speakers. I wish that they would trust those of us who are native speakers to explain why certain translations are not accepted. by Duo.
I think you're right ! That is what I learned in the "Determiner" section of the course.
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It's not a section, but rather a skill, just like this one called "Phrases", just further down the tree. You'll get to it eventually.
So are pronouns never implied by verb conjugation in Hebrew? Always made explicit?
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Only with some conjugations in the past and the future tense, but never in the present tense.
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But essentially קוראים is a verb in masculine plural with the subject more or less understood to be society or people in general, or is it some other word form that just looks like a masculine plural?
Yes, קוראים is a verb in present tense, masculine plural. In this case the sentence has a null subject, which can certainly be understood as "people in general".
I answered, "Don't call me Yossi" and it was marked wrong. How would you say that?
Don't call me Yossi - אל תקרא לי יוסי My name is not Yossi - לא קוראים לי יוסי
Because, AniKelly69, the sentence you wrote is a command. The sentence to be translated is declarative, not imperative.
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Because in Hebrew you use אל (al) + future tense for the negative imperative. That would be אל תקרא לי יוסי "al tikra li yosi". The sentence above is a statement.
"They don't call me Yosi" -- that's the most literal answer and it should be also considered, doesn't it?
Can anyone explain this sentence? I don’t know any of this words except ‘no’ and ‘Yossi’... What’re all those other words and why does no have to come at the beginning? They don’t really teach us word order
Do you know how to use the drop-down hints? If you hover the cursor over the words (in a web browser) or tap on a word (in the Android app) you should see a list of possible translations. The best translation in the context of the sentence should appear at the top of the list. This feature is an essential part of Duolingo; I really don't think it's possible to learn without it.
"I am not Yossi." - אני לא יוסי
"I am not called Yossi."/"They don't call me Yossi." - לא קוראים לי יוסי
In a broader context, that could totally work. Unlike what people have suggested above (such as, "They don't call me Yossi," which is not idiomatic English!), your suggested phrase is useful. (Although normally one would contract the I am to I'm.)
However, Duolingo is literal, and wants to be able to cross-translate precisely, and so My name is not Yossi is the best translation here.
It did not accept "I am not named Yosi" which is not substantively different from the accepted answer, especially since neither of them is a literal translation. Boo.
I think the only problem is that I am not named Yossi is not as idiomatic as My name is not Yossi. If I were to hear someone say I am not named Yossi, I would assume that he or she is not a native English speaker.
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It's there. I can hear it fine. But I can understand that it might be a bit harder to hear it, as it is an enclitic, meaning that it basically runs together with the previous word and it gets almost no emphasis. You will encounter this phenomenon with most other prepositional pronouns.
