"Du kannst nicht "nein" sagen."
Translation:You cannot say "no".
202 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
2622
Gotta love the consistency of their inconsistency... and the fact that this has still not been fixed in all these years.
Only in writing and colloquially there is no difference. This is splitting hairs and should not be marked wrong when we are trying to learn German, not English. Bad Duo! Also, got marked wrong because I did not include the quotation marks. Duo doesn't bother marking capitalization or misplaced/missing commas, so why mess with us on this?
2621
This is the only Duo question I've encountered where punctuation matters. My guess is that whoever input the question didn't know how to work around quotes-within-quotes. There are, unfortunately, certain Duo questions where you have to memorize the required answer to get past them because someone has made an executive decision that only that solution is acceptable.
@Puett
Indeed - who can hear quotation marks??
I can't hear capital letters, commas or apostrophes, but I can somehow still add them when necessary.
If you heard the sentence, "You cannot say 'You shall not pass!'", would you also ignore putting the relevant text in quotes because you "couldn't hear the quotation marks"?
I was also marked wrong for this, but I think it's better to force us on re-doing a sentence (from now on, knowing that in this sentence the right punctuation is required), than taking the risk of letting someone who hasn't understood the sentence learn wrongly how to place the "nein".
I don't know...for me, who's not a native english speaker, it seems that this sentence can give rise to much confusion, if allowed without the quotation marks. (And there are a lot of non-english-natives here between us) :)
Not sure, though.
you are completely right : here again we have a clear and cut example of Duo's method .This kind of things has been recurring umptee times , I am very critical about the "one answer only " attitude which is the LAW if you choose to jump the given levels in the same section.Fortunately Duo does not teach at American universities.
1316
"Cannot" and "can not" aren't the same. In the former "not" is modifying "can," whereas in the latter the "not" is modifying the verb that comes after.
It was marked as "almost correct" for me, but I still received credit.
Without thinking about it, I usually put "can not" if I don't use a contraction. Why? Because it's the simple negation of can. "Cannot" stands alone (as far as I can remember) as the only negation that concatenates the two words.
There is no such thing as willnot, shallnot, havenot, etc. You either have the verb + not or the contraction won't, shan't, haven't, etc.
So while cannot may be "more correct", it's certainly an outlier here.
Plus, when translating German into English, you always have verb+nicht. Easier when I'm "in the groove" to keep the negation as not+verb. Not to mention the number of times I've been quickly typing and hit the enter key while trying to add an apostrophe. The. Worst.
1346
Sorry if that sounded mean, but I did not realize I needed to include them given that this was a listening activity for me.
588
Which is annoying as hell since it doesn't give a rat's bottom about full stops, question marks and so on. And even MORE annoying when it marks your answer WRONG because you weren't aware you had to use them!
1705
Been there, done that. My deepest sympathy. There are a few like that, usually lurking at the important points. There’s one with quotes about a book title. Watch out for it!
2661
Lack of punctuation has always been ignored in Duo. Therefore why was I marked as wrong for omitting speech marks?
1107
After listening a dozen times or so I know that I type exactly what they are saying but they mark it wrong. Something is off here.
724
I wrote 'du kannst nicht nein sagen' and was marked wrong, I guess the 'nein' should have been in apostrophes!
21
du kannst nicht nein sagen - was marked wrong (listening test), apparently I should have used speech marks? Even though duolingo has never cared about punctuation before.
588
I answered: Du kannst nicht nein sagen - and got marked wrong. How the **** am I supposed to know to wrap the "nein" in quote marks? The answer was right and should have been marked such.
651
I had no quotation marks so it was not accepted. It should have been!! Its not meant to question our punctuation, but our German. Not I am a native English speaker and former teacher of English. In the reverse situation I would not expect quotation marks around no, because I was not testing their punctuation, but their English!
1356
I was marked wrong only because I didn't use quotation marks in the German sentence. In other places, in the same kind of sentence, Duolingo does not use quotation marks. I just wish Duo would be consistent.
1937
I answered: du kannst nicht nein sagen, it said I was wrong because it's: du kannst nicht "nein" sagen.
Why mark the answer as wrong for quotation marks???
208
I wrote: "Du kannst nicht nein sagen" and IT WAS MARKED WRONG!ALL I DID WAS WRITE NEIN WITHOUT THE QUOTATION MARKS!!
208
Yeah, so do I...It's kind of strange though, it should've been accepted "almost correct" as it usually says when you make a typo :)
1705
Latest bit of fun. Knowing the insistence on quotation marks I put them in and....guess what? Wrong! But the corrected answer was exactly what I put. If I knew how to show my screenshot here, I would. I have not lost my marbles!
If I knew how to show my screenshot here, I would.
Screenshots are always good!
Please upload your screenshot to a website somewhere (e.g. imgur, flickr, Google Docs -- anywhere as long as you can get a URL that lets everyone see the image; you might need to set the link to shareable first). Then post the URL of the image in a comment here.
Thank you!
1705
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OK26JCsH0XGmTwl4QmvMY44LQ4ONfy2k/view?usp=drivesdk Being a bear of little brain, I’m trusting this doesn’t give everyone access to my (empty) bank account!
It looks as if you might have used “smart quotes” instead of "straight quotes" -- the ones in what you typed look like // to me while the ones in the correction look like ||.
(And strictly speaking, those were the wrong smart quotes for German; German has low-99 ... high-66 as in „nein“ rather than high-66 ... high-99 as in “no” in English.)
1705
Thank you for the reminder re quotation marks in German.. Given that this is such a rare instance of Duo noticing punctuation of any sort, I doubt whether the actual format is all that relevant. Few people here will have instant access to low sixty-sixes, I imagine. We are learners, after all. It just seems odd that with so many people commenting on this question, a solution has not yet been found. The only way I have found to actually complete this exercise is to get this question wrong and then copy and paste from the “correct” answer, otherwise it’s impossible to get to the end.
1180
Agreed. I listened it to it several times because I thought it should be nicht, but the audio very clearly sounds like nichts. I reported it.
I don't think it sounds like nichts. She is just enunciating the final t and I think most people are mistaking that for an s. There may be an argument for her enunciating it too much, but I don't think it's wrong.
Audio on Pons:
The first link sounds far closer to the Duolingo audio to me than the second. I don't hear any sort of z sound at the end of nicht to make me think it's nichts.
1180
Interesting. On my computer, it sounds more like the second audio. It may depend on the quality of our different audio systems. I'll try it on some different devices and with earbuds when I get a chance.
Because like in English, you put spoken text in quotes. It's what separates it from the rest of the sentence. If it were longer and not just "no", but instead "No way, Jose!", you would proceed to do the same thing. The sentence would become 'You can't say "No way, Jose!"' Whether it is one word or a full sentence should be of no consequence.
I've never seen a conjugation of say (i.e. say, said, says) that didn't have it's corresponding text in quotes.
Using one set of quotation marks ["] looks out of place. Normally quotation marks always have a set a the beginning of a quote and a set at the end of a quote if quotation marks are used at all. Consequently, you should have added a set at the end of each translation or omitted them entirely. I do think it looks better with full quotation marks.
Here is what you wrote, formatted more appropriately:
"You can't say no to that" in German is "Sie können (or du kannst) dazu nicht nein sagen" or "Dazu (or zu dem) können Sie (kannst du) nicht nein sagen."
That all being said, I think that the comments in response to your original comment, GeoSchribs, actually stem from Duolingo's punctuation rather than the punctuation in your comment.
{Also, I think you meant to say "Should I leave it?" in your last comment rather than "Should I let that?"; I'm guessing that the multi-faceted German verb "lassen" is to blame for the awkward English wording.}
It would help greatly if you click "My answer should have been accepted" under the report options. That submits it for review. Alternatively, if you want to write a comment about it here, please copy and paste your response in its entirety. I understand your frustration when things don't work as they should, but it's hard to guess what happened when we don't have the details!
1578
It still does not accept the answer without quotation marks around "nein". I have taken a screen shot but do not know what to do with it. Also I cannot report it as the reporting button only gives 3 options, and "my answer should be accepted" is not one of them.
My answer was written in German and it as word for word correct with the ‘right’ answer. I am confused.com!!
1867
So I am using a word bank and have listened to the sentence over and over and from what I have to choose from, I answer Du kannst nicht nein sagen. I am told I am incorrect. I don't have anything else available in my word bank and the answer is exactly as written above (without quotes-which I don't have in word bank). I have no option in 'report' for 'my answer should be accepted'. Is it just me?
2407
Me as well. Thanks to reading your reply I got it to work. I see a mod looked at this a week ago but maybe immediately went on holidays.
1226
Once again I have been asked to write in German what I have heard and what I heard is "Do last night be in sagen". Filling up refuses to accept that. What can I do?
1226
I was asked to write in German what I heard from the audible file. What I heard was clearly "Du kannst nicht nein sagen". Using the word bank I did just that. Duolinguo refused to accept that as correct. Eventually I learned that I had to use the keyboard and put the word" nein" in quotation marks. This is the only time I have seen Duolinguo require punctuation marks.
By the way, I have no idea why my previous post was so garbled in transmission.
I got it wrong because I didn't put quotation marks around the nein -_-
Why not "You cannot tell me "no"".
Because that's not what the German sentence means.
Most likely, it refers to someone who always likes being helpful and never refuses when someone asks them a favor. So they "can't say 'no' (to anybody)".
There's nothing about "me" in the German sentence.
Seems like the dative "me" fits this just fine.
Translations have to be not merely grammatical and sensical; they have to convey the same thought as the original as well. So you can't add ideas that are not in the original.
not using the quotation marks makes one wrong : es ist völlig idiotisch und ungerecht ! Now I'm quite used to Duo's "so called" learning ways !!! One I got regular ads about Duo's excellence in learning foreign languages , they claimed that Duo was far better than American universities at learning languages to people.At the university things are at least more open , and f
not using the quotation marks makes one wrong : es ist völlig idiotisch und ungerecht ! Now I'm quite used to Duo's "so called" learning ways !!! One I got regular ads about Duo's excellence in learning foreign languages , they claimed that Duo was far better than American universities at learning languages to people.At the university things are at least more open , and f
So one set of required quotation marks on a site with multiple languages managed by multiple contributors makes this site awful? Because what, you lost a whole 10 seconds of your time?! That's the epitome of first world problems.
It's always easy to complain at free things. Clearly you've managed to get to 25 in both German and Spanish, so it must not have been as terrible as you allude to if you made it that far.
What I'm more concerned about are your English language skills. Have you checked out the English tree? I haven't, but I'm sure it's pretty good, just like MOST of the courses on here. Sure there are problems, but you don't throw the baby out with the bathwater ...
Nope, they're needed! Would you say that they're superflouous in English? The sentence implies that the person doesn't have the ability to say "no". Could be something wrong with his speech. "He can't say "no"!" In that case, the quotes are needed, for example. "He can't say "no", so they are giving him speech therapy."
460
2.1.2021 Ich habe den Satz OHNE Anführungszeichen geschrieben und er wurde akzeptiert.
I was dinged for not placing "nein" in quotation marks, but the way the quotation marks are used is not even correct for German. If we should also be learning correct punctuation (I have no problem with that; after all, punctuation is also part of the language), shouldn't it then be spelled „nein“ ?
1039
Du kannst nicht nein sagen. Why is that wrong without inverted commas ???? !!!!!
1832
Du kannst nicht „nein" sagen.
If it demands quote marks at least it recognises German ones.
849
Absolutely bogus that quotations marks Must surround "nein" in the challenge. Where did this come from? It is not mandatory in written German.