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- "Az játszik a villamosok és a…
"Az játszik a villamosok és a taxik között, aki a bank fölött lakik."
Translation:The one who lives above the bank is playing between the trams and the taxis.
44 Comments
2081
This sentence must be constructed by a perfect mind. Perfectly complicated as noone is speaking and perfectly annoying for every learner and refresher.
I am really feeling fed up now because i already sent about 20 reports in just one refreshing sequence.
These kinds of sentences are really problematic for Duolingo, because we have to guess exactly the right phrasing in English, which may or may not be very natural. It would be better to use less complicated sentence structures.
I do agree that, especially early in the course, less complicated sentences would be better. At some point, however, they have to get more complicated. Neither English-speakers not Hungarian-speakers rely purely on simple sentences.
That's true, but this is just discouraging to students. When I did this I just had to fill out a word document with the "correct" answers and find the right one every time it came up so I could progress. The alternative was getting things "wrong" simply because I failed to guess the precise English wording required, which sometimes is very unnatural. This isn't pedagogically defensible.
Duolingo isn't well suited to long, complicated sentence structures, and most courses avoid them until fairly late. I think it's better to accept the limitations of Duolingo and produce courses of the highest quality and friendliness that get students to levels that are reasonably achievable from this method, rather than make discouraging content that aims slightly higher.
- 295
Noticing your first comment was five months ago, I would simply note that many more options are accepted now. No question the lengthy sentences added to the "growing pains" though.
My gosh, this sentence should be perfectly translated to: "give up on Hungarian already!"
Yes. I nevertheless managed to get it right but it was rejected because I put "between" instead of among. Frustrating.
between is indicating that sth is between two objects (I am standing between the chair and the desk (one of each). If you are standing among(st) multiple objects or persons, you need to use the word "among". Here we are talking at least two trams and two taxis, hence the rejection. The hungarian translation will be the same though: "között"
- 295
If you look at the top of this thread, I believe you'll see that "between" would have been rejected only because the course creators happened to have omitted it originally. It is now the suggested translation.
- 1304
Yes, piguy3, I too think "between" is definitely the better option, after all the trams must be lined up on their tracks and the taxis are probably lined up at the taxi rank. Thus, the playing is occurring between the two entities - trams and taxis. So it's good to see the translation amended.
I hope no one is playing between trams and taxis. This sentence really doesn't make sense.
Please try to be flexible and consider to accept alternate translations that are equally correct. While appreciating that we are still in Beta, it can be very frustrating, when one and only one wording is accepted. "The one who lives above the bank is the one who plays between the trams and taxis" seems like a perfectly fine translation.
I have to admit, considering that the lesson on clothing is still down the tree, this seems like a rather complex structure to introduce and practice.
Perhaps it might be more useful later on?
- 394
Although I had difficulty in transcribing the sentence (I think I played it 10 times), it is a good example of some fundemental differences between English and Hungarian. Apart from the almost trival - the use of postpositions for where things are placed, the az ... aki construction (along with all its cousins) must become second nature if you are to progress beyond "the boy vars for the girl".
Everyone is complaining about how difficult this is, but it's almost all content that has been taught already
- 295
I think most of the complaints date back to a time when an option as basic as "above the bank" may not have been accepted, so one had to not only remember how to translate the individual words but the particular, not necessarily extremely natural, translations actually accepted.
- 451
It sounds like 'aszi' at the beginning. And now, after a month, I am still having difficulties with the sound at the beginning and cannot understand it: Asziatszik
Duo are trying to revise some things and teach others at the same time, which is a good idea. It's just that some of these sentences are very complex and so utterly different from the English that they are real braintwisters. This is the kind of one where you can look at each word and understand them all, but still be puzzled what it's about. As for translations, it is incredibly hard to write a course that is perfect, and when you consider that they are dealing with people who speak all different types of English, and who are a mix of people who are experienced language learners, and others who have done very little- that, without knowing us personally, is a very big challenge indeed. There will be things ahead that are easier to grasp!
This is complicated even for a person who speaks fluent Hungarian and fluent English for many years!
Apparently I am in the minority but I found the grammatical lessons this sentence imparts us very enlightening.
- 295
A problem could be that once you're in that speech register, "He who does X does Y" carries a (strong) meaning of "Anyone who does X does Y." I wouldn't suppose the the Hungarian means that, although I'd be happy to be corrected.
Given that "Az" was used here, and not "ő", I don't think either he nor she are actually valid here.
Usually we use "az, aki..." form when the identity of the actionee doesn't matter, the action itself is more important. Is you say "Ő, aki..." then you emphasise that s/he is that particular person, who makes the (less important) said action. Although you are right, "az" is usually used for inanimate objects, and "ő" is for the third person, which is always gender neutral in hungarian. The context or a name as a hint can help you in these cases.
- 451
Without copy and paste, no chance to pass suchlike sentences without mistakes. And they don't get corrected.
Is it possible to say "Az aki a bank fölött lakik a villamosok és a taxik között játszik"?
OR with a noun such as "A 'FIÚ aki a bank fölött lakik a villamosok és a taxik játszik"?
This structure makes more sense to me as a speaker of other European languages.
Yes, those are possible, BUT, they are probably not the best, and in general the Hungarian grammar is quite different from other European languages (not that I know many others...), I do know the word order and relative clauses are certainly extremely different than English.
The reason is because of focus - the object being focused must be before the verb. The focus and verb can't be split. So if you put the focus on a fiú or even the unnamed az (implicitly a fiú vagy a lány), that has to be followed by játszik, which means the relative clause has to be moved somewhere else. I suppose it is possible to focus on something else in this sentence, but it doesn't seem natural.
- 394
As I understand it - no. It is basically two clauses each must be introduced by its own pronoun (and separated with a comma).
- 731
Both sentences are perfectly fine (well, save for the missing commas before aki and after lakik in either sentence). The first one is even a valid translation of the English sentence.
- 394
In English it means something slightly different. You are indicating the person, and then saying something about them. As it stands (and as I understand the Hungarian) it is more abstract.
- 731
It would be a fine translation. Nothing abstract going on here. Just an unnamed person. :)
I put "The one who plays next to the trams and taxis, is the one who lives above the bank," and was marked incorrect
- 295
"next to" is different than "between," and, as you can see from the suggested translation, I believe you have interchanged the dependent and independent clauses in the sentences, which are set up very differently in Hungarian than in English. As to the two "one's" I defer to the wisdom of others as to whether Hungarian could render such a thing more directly.
