"We see in front of us a small cat."
Translation:אנחנו רואים מולנו חתול קטן.
22 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
The English sentence is very awkward. One would say "We see a small cat in front of us" that's why a lot of us put מולינו at the end of the sentence.
Ever notice that some Israelis do this in English? It's because the Hebrew is like that.
201
I realize this question is from 3 years ago but when I first learned this lesson I had the exact same question. It wasn't until later on that I discovered the answer. I am here doing strengthening exercises and I happened to see this question so here's a delayed response but one that was applicable to me a few months ago.
So there is a whole skill later on in Duolingo exactly about this. To summarize, when you don't include the personal pronoun and just use the verb רואים you are signaling a general type of statement that gets translated roughly as "one sees" or "they see." Of course, in the example we are working with this wouldn't work very well because of the preposition מולנו which means "in front of us" and that would give us trouble in a generic sentence. But had the sentence been: רואים חתול קטן you could translate that as "one sees a small cat." Or conversely with the personal pronoun, i.e. אנחנו רואים חתול קטן would be "we see a small cat."
I hope this comment helps the next person.
In tandem with that, one should be able to put אנו instead of אנחנו. Your question and my point concern how people actually speak Hebrew. How common is it to drop or abbreviate אנחנו?
Actually, the original sentence is slightly more natural, but yours is just fine, too. Just note the spelling of the word חתול.
Which prepositions use the -ינו ending and which use just -נו ? I tried מולינו and got it wrong
"אנו רואים מולנו חתול קטן" : WHY WAS TREATED THIS TRANSLATION AS A MISTAKE?
Probably a mistake - though אנו is used less often than אנחנו in my experience, it's more poetic I guess you could say. Report it if you think it's wrong though!
I thought the prepositions in this lesson were supposed to use the plural endings, hence מולינו instead of מולנו. Is that not the case?
- 1423
In the tips and notes, it says that the prepositions that use plural endings are being introduced. It doesn't say all of the prepositions in the skill use them.
- 1423
My initial thought was that you can't say that, because you can't skip pronouns in present tense, except for the case of impersonal sentences. And then I realized that this could very well be such a sentence. So, I think your answer could be correct.