"Das Personal ist schlecht."

[deactivated user]

The pronunciation of "Personal" is really schlecht too...

[slowflake]

Can you also translate as "the staff is ill"?

[makmar]

Probably not if you think that 'mir geht es schlecht' means 'i feel bad'. In this sense 'the staff is not feeling well' should be something like: 'dem Personal geht es schlecht', I guess. For 'ill' germans have the word 'krank', so your sentence would be: 'das Personal ist krank'. I hope this helps a little. :-)

[SelphieB]

Is this how Duolingo is teaching us to speak? Like a glitch-bot?

[makmar]

I take your point, Selphie. The frustration can be enormous at times but think that it's online and free of charge. (At least that's what keeps me going...)

[pctrollbreath]

I'm a native English speaker and this sentence just does not make sense. "Staff" and "Personnel" are plurals, so it should be "the personnel are bad" (Reported)