"A macska az újságra fekszik."

Translation: The cat lies down on the newspaper.

[jsiehler]

"Lies onto" is not used in English in this sense. It's just "lies on," or if you need to be more clear about the motion, then "lies down on."

[bnyugat]

Yes, I've been giving this kind of feedback for weeks with regard to English prepositions. It hasn't helped.

[Arcaeca]

To be fair, prepositions are always one of the hardest parts of learning a new language, I think - compare French, where there are two words for "in", dans and en, which aren't interchangeable (dans = physically inside of, en = everything that wouldn't fit under dans) and which people constantly mix up.

But yeah, the near constantly wrong prepositions in English sentences doesn't say much for the course creators' fluency...

[antipythagoras]

I agree that it's frustrating. But perhaps the creators allow themselves to use unorthodox English to emphasize the subtle differences between e.g. újságon and újságra, which cannot easily be rendered in English in any less awkward way.

[richardkiss]

That's fine to help impart subtle meaning, but don't punish native speakers for writing correct and natural native speech.

[baldgymnastnurse]

Does this mean the cat is moving onto the newspaper to lie down? If I say, a macska az újságon fekszik, this would simply the cat is lying on the newspaper, with no mention of motion?

[AppleSenpie]

Yes, exactly! Using "újságra" here means that the cat is in the act of lying down, rather than already lying there.

[Forzafiori]

Thank you duolingo, for making me realize how horrible it is that my dialect of english has turned "lie" and "lay" into synonyms. One day I hope to see a sentence like this and not try to say the cat lays down.

[CliveWilto]

Actually that is a mistake that a lot of not native speakers could make. Even some native speakers say it sometimes. I think Duolingo should accept lie and lay as correct even if in pure grammatical terms it is not.

[dvanclev]

@baldgymnastnurse Yes, that's correct.

[Andrei551534]

Can the cat lie any other way than down?

[mizinamo]

"lies" = is in a horizontal position

"lies down" = moves into a horizontal position

[AppleSenpie]

"Lying down" is used in the translation to express that the cat is moving into a lying position, since that is what the Hungarian sentence is meant to say.

[Arcaeca]

Also, the audio doesn't sound quite right... like the speaker is saying "le" instead of "ra".

[Harga]

A macska lefekszik az újságra. - The cat lies down on the newspaper.