"יש לכם כלי עבודה בבית?"
Translation:Do you have work tools at home?
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Translating כלי עבודה as "work tool" sounds very redundant in English. Like saying a "play toy". I am providing feedback that just "tool" should be accepted but I would be interested in hearing any other perspectives.
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Isn't the word עבודה redundant then? We could just say כלי which i believe means tool or כלים which means tools
Well, as כֵּלִים is a rather broad term, it is often necessary to specify them. If someone asked me יֵשׁ לְךָ כֵּלִים בַּבַּ֫יִת, I would think he asked me about tableware, i.e. my dishes.
I said "in the house" and I got marked wrong. Correct phrase is "at home". In English those are the same thing.
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Report it.
I would argue, though, that they are not the same in English, but should be accepted because in Hebrew both are written the same way.
I disagree. I'll say "it's in the house" meaning "at home". I suppose it depends on where I'm standing. If I'm outside my house, I'll say the former. If I'm at work, I'll say the latter.
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Can we distinguish "tools" from "tool"? If "כלי עבודה" means tools, how can we say "tool"?
Well, in the singular you have כְּלִי־ [kli], but in the plural כְּלֵי־ [kle(y)]!
Well, yes, in the singular you have כְּלִי tool, same form absolute and in construct, but in the plural כֵּלִים becomes כְּלֵי־.
If tools is -כלי, then why is there no -כלי in the sample sentence, with the hyphen? Is the hyphen optional?
Yes, the מַקֵּף, a special conjoiner of Hebrew orthography, is optional. It was used in the spelling of Biblical Hebrew to indicate loss or reduction of word stress, and is still used in texts by some authors in contemporanean Hebrew, but without being regulated. I use it consistently to indicate construct forms, according to the use in some dictionaries.
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Since the audio happens to be missing on this one, without it, how would you know whether this is "Do you have work tools at home?" or "Do you have a work tool at home?"
כלי עבודה can be either singular or plural depending on the pronunciation, so I think Duolingo should accept both, though logically this sentence probably doesn’t mean a singular work tool, because then the person asking the question would likely say the name of the tool.
Asking “Do you have a work tool at home?” is as likely to be asked as, Do you have a dish at home?