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- "A lila függönyhöz állsz, nem…
"A lila függönyhöz állsz, nem pedig a barnához."
Translation:You stand at the purple curtain, and not at the brown one.
24 Comments
Other than a few idioms like "stand to attention," the construction "stand to," with "to" used to indicate direction, is almost never used in English. Standing is viewed as a static action that doesn't proceed in any direction or toward anything.
I thought they had a native English speaker to proofread the sentences but apparently that's not the case.
I've seen several that could not possibly have been okayed by a native English speaker, but hey! That's why we have Beta. Things are already improving.
268
Yep - we just to keep reporting these "stand to" sentences as errors and hopefully they'll be expunged from the course.
So how should this one be translated? I think I understand what the Hungarian sentence means, and I'm a native English speaker, and I'm still having trouble. "Going over to"? "Standing next to" (but that would be more "függönynél)?
I guess this is similar to the different between "ott megy" and "oda megy" that we saw in some other places. It might not be possible to conveniently express the difference in English...
I would like a clarification from the Hungarian speakers what direction the person is facing when they are standing at the curtain. Are they facing the curtain? Can they be alongside it? If the Hungarian sentence doesn't imply anything about that, it probably translates into English as "You go (up) to the purple curtain and stand there" or "You go stand at the purple curtain." It's a tricky construction, for sure!
- 892
The Hungarian sentence doesn't give any indication where the person is facing. They can face away from it (if the curtain is the background for a photograph) or towards it (if it's a stage curtain) or in any other direction. The sentence only says that the person is ending up standing by the curtain. "Go stand at" would probably be the closest translation of the concept.
I'm not sure how this was written in English a year ago, but "Standing at the purple curtain..." is correct and natural in English. It does depend on the context though, and does imply that you are supposed to be in a certain position (place) but are at the wrong one.
- 892
It used to be "You stand to the purple curtain..." trying to express that instead of already standing there, the person is supposed to go over and stand there. It's a movement that ends up in standing, as indicated by the -höz suffix used here.
Only you don't use "stand to" in that context in English. Use "stand at", "stand by" (but careful) or "stand next to" instead.
For example:
- Please stand at the curtain
- Please stand by the curtain
- Please stand next to the curtain
You never ask someone to "stand to" something, unless you are asking them to stand to attention, or if they can stand to do something (bírni).
....and there are plenty of ways of perfectly expressing the same thing in English, including movement - but many won't like it as the use "stand" isn't necessarily be used.
You can combinations of "moving to", "going to" or "position" with or without stand, amongst others.
For example:
- You are positioning yourself at the purple curtain and not the brown one.
- You are heading to the purple curtain and not the brown.
- You are going to [stand at] the purple curtain and not the brown.
- You are moving to the purple curtain and not the brown.
- You are moving into position at the purple curtain and not the brown.
(Additionally, note the removal of the incorrect comma.)
There are many ways of expressing this in English to include the movement and result of the sentence. If you get fixed on having to always directly translate the word "áll" then you are missing the point that words don't always translate directly. (Not that you specifically are, just pointing it out.) :)
This translation is inconsistent. It mixes "at the curtain" with "to the curtain", but how am I supposed to know?
"Stand to (the curtain)" is not correct English. Any such errors in the "accepted" translations should be reported.
- 176
This is incorrectly translated. It ought to read as: "You are standing by the purple curtain and not the brown one."
"You are standing" does not indicate movement towards, as the Hungarian sentence does.
My questions is does using "-hoz" in this sentence make sense to the native Hungarian speakers? Is that the way they would express asking someone to go over to a curtain and stand by it? For some a sentence like this might not seem useful, but as a teacher, I often tell children where to go stand or what to stand by.
- 892
Sure it does. :)
English is a bit odd, in that it can't make sense of things like "stand to" or "sit from" or "lie into". Though I guess it's because that none of these verbs (on their own) describe a movement.
But Hungarian doesn't care. If you're taking a family picture, you can easily say "Az apádhoz állsz?" - "Will you stand by your father?"
I got this one wrong the first time it came up in the discussion, so I took a look at the discussion. I left the discussion tab open in the browser, so the next time it came up I checked my answer, which the tab said should have been "You stand to the purple curtain, and not to the brown one." Duolingo this time marked it wrong. So apparently there are two accepted answers, except Duolingo will only take one and there is no way to predict the correct one at any given time. For reference, the other answer is at this page: https://www.duolingo.com/comment/17035145 Compare to the page where I am currently commenting: https://www.duolingo.com/comment/16464833
When you get this wrong, why does duo give the correct answer as "You stand at the purple curtain, and not at the brown 1"? (1 rather than one)?
FWIW, "You are standing at the purple curtain, and not the brown" is the same as "You stand at the purple curtain, and not at the brown one" in English. (The "one" is implicit.)
- 892
Duolingo automatically interchanges number words and number symbols when translating to English, for whatever reason. It might be easier to type "I am 20 years old" instead of "I am twenty years old", but I don't really see the benefit with "one".
English is not a fan of dangling adjectives. "You stand at the brown" sounds a bit lost or incomplete to me. English doesn't really have the capacity to use its adjectives as nouns. There is a sentence later in this course that exemplifies that pretty nicely, which could be "The small bird flies over to the Hungarian woman, the big white to the English."
When the subject type has already been introduced, the "one" becomes optional. So, "You are standing at the purple curtain, and not at the brown curtain" is the same as "You are standing at the purple curtain, and not at the brown one" is the same as "You are standing at the purple curtain, and not at the brown".
FWIW, in written English, "I am twenty years old" is correct, but (outside of colloquial use) "I am 20 years old" is not. In written language, you should always spell out numbers - and in past times this was more true than now. There are different views on this - it depends on the style being used. However, for a site like duolingo - writing out numbers should be preferred. (Especially as we are often still learning them!)
-------- i always thought the general usage was to write out the numbers up to twenty and use numerals for 21 + . . .
Big 6 mar 19
Grammarly has a good discussion of this, and the best explanation I have seen yet:
