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- Topic: Greek >
- "Όχι, παρακαλώ."
49 Comments
+1 or 'No, thank you' We don't reply 'No, please' in English when someone is offering you something and you wish to politely say no to it.
I agree, and reported that, at the least, no, thanks ought to be allowed as an alternative. I also suggested the inapt feel that "no, please" gives in English, despite its more literal rendering of the Greek. I expect that the Greek way of saying it is natural to Greek, but the English way of saying it is also natural to English, and the literal translations of one to the other seem to be quite lacking, while the natural ones convey quite the same meanings.
It is not natural in Greek either. Instead you should say "Όχι, ευχαριστώ".
Ah, ευχαριστώ! I suppose that in that case, we should translate this exercise as "no, please" - equally awkward in two languages! :)
Surely could be. And we have certainly demonstrated that translation can be tortuous. :)
Good to know. And here I thought "Όχι, ευχαριστώ" was yet another of my awkward foreignisms I've been cluelessly saying to everyone.
I have heard this in one context in Greek. It was a mother telling a young child not to do something.
If you want to politely decline, then this sounds unnatural in both languages and should be "Όχι, ευχαριστώ" - "No, thanks" instead. But I think that there is another case, where imho "Όχι, παρακαλώ" - "No, please" could work for both languages maybe. For example, you are in a bus and you want to offer your seat to an elderly lady. "-Please maam, take my seat. -Oh, it's not necessary dear, you don't have to get up. -No, please (I insist)." I'm pretty sure it sounds ok in Greek, can any native English speaker confirm if it could work in English as well?
This is exactly the way I would expect "no" and "please" to be used together in English. It's not used to decline something politely. It is, as given here, used to repeat an invitation over a rejection - to "insist". I can think of one more possibility, and that is to reject another person's suggestion over their repeated insistence: "Here, let me just brush that off", "No, thanks", "But it's no trouble at all", "NO, please!"
In Greek too, this sentence just makes no sense and doesn't have any practical purpose for as far as I know.
What we do here is teach vocabulary and syntax. If you are looking for a useful phrasebook there are plenty on the net.
You might like some of these other "odd" Duolingo sentences the internet is full of them.
There are whole sites on Twitter, Reddit, Instagram, Facebook, and more. Here are just a few quick ones.
From the Portuguese...The butterfly wrote the poems.
From the Vietnamese...The police know where yo shower.
From the Danish... I am not a singing table.
From the German...A bear is drinking beer.
Owen's nightclub is selling parsnips.
Nobody is surprised when the blue apple speaks.
I am eating bread and crying on the floor.
Where did the horses learn French?
My parents don't like that you eat ants.
The band grooves like a moose.
There are too many to show here.
All we are trying to do is teach you words so you can use them when and how you like. Relax, smile and carry on.
I have noticed that you have given this answer to any person that says that this sentence does not make sense.
Indeed, those sentences you mentioned above make no sense at all, BUT are correct from the aspect of grammar and syntax. Those sentences cannot be relevant to this greek sentence, regarding the lack of sense. One greek sentence that does not make any sense at all, and has the same concept with those sentences you wrote, is: Το λεμόνι είναι φίλος με το μήλο = The lemon is a friend with the apple.
So, the sentence "Όχι παρακαλώ" has not the same concept with the other sentences, that's the point, the greek native speakers support here. It's like writing Nein, bitte in German for example. No one would accept this sentece. And, also I don't think that it is about learning vocabulary. People can learn these words by writing weird Greek sentences (I don't mind this part) but, not wrong ones.
Catalan has a blue crab all the time doing strange things. And donkeys of course!
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No, I think you're wrong. The meaning of the Greek phrase is different here. You must understand something like "no, please, don't do that!"
If a Greek speaker wants to say "no, thanks", he will say "όχι, ευχαριιστώ".
Thie words for yes and no confused me first time I heard them. Οχι sounds like "ok", and ναι sounds like "nay"
οχι sounds more like o-he and ναι sounds more like neh from the audio clips.
Yes, that is much closer. English-speaker ears sometimes go to what's familiar to English-speakers. This is a natural occurence that happens as a result of the brain processing that follows the sound reception in the ear. It's part of what gives us fluency: quick recognition. It's a learned response, and can be altered by further learning.
Yes, this is very true, and it should be actively used to get maximum learning. It especially helps building vocabulary. When you make the connections between something new and something familiar you automatically get the benefit from already existing brain pathways, instead of having to build "brand new" ones. You get the best effect if you can get as many senses involved as possible, both audio, visual and tactile. But sometimes this mechanism misfires, as in my experience. It wasn't really a big challenge to remember the words, but rather an amusement, which actually helped me remember. Humour and playing with words is also a great way of remembering words and grammar.
Greeks also often do a small nod for "no" and move their head horizontally - and turn it a bit - for "yes" to make things even more confusing. Just go with the opposite of your what your gut tells you, and you can't go wrong
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I've never seen so many people unable to grasp the concept of "learning vocab." The sentence doesn't have to mean what you want it to mean / think it should mean. It's like if you had, "The crab eats carrots," and people come out and complain "I'VE NEVER SAID THIS IN MY LIFE" or "It should be 'RABBITS' not crabs!!" Unless the sentence is grammatically incorrect, how about just translating it and not worrying about what you "think" it should mean?
Yes, we agree. We have a vocabulary we need to teach. There are certain restrictions, for example we can only add one new word per sentence. So, sometimes we get "crabs eating carrots" and so what? What's wrong with a little fun in fact we are encouraged to use funny, silly sentences. There are whole sites on Twitter, Reddit, FB, etc with funny stuff Duo says.
Thanks for your understanding and encouraging words.
When you start learning a new language, the vocabulary isn't the only issue that you will encounter. If someone wants to learn a language properly, he or she has to learn, except of the vocabulary, basic phrases, grammar and syntax. Otherwise, you do nothing. Learning a sentence like "This vegetable doesn't like the vegetarian" or other strange stuff, it's ok from my point of view, and I don't have any problem with that, because you learn new words. But, when we refer to a sentence like this one, a basic phrase that responds to a question and which layout is what it is, then NO, you can't do changes on it, and saying that you did it for learning new vocab. If you wanna do this, ask the moderators if they can add the "The crab eats carrots" sentence instead.
So, you are wrong, this has nothing to do about unability of grasping the "learning vocab" concept. This phrase cannot be used for this purpose. Sometimes, if a native says something, most of the times it's right (not always), and learners should keep this piece of information in mind.
The problem is: it's confusing. When I read quickly my mind often goes for "no, thank you" and then type that in, just to realize afterwards that it was the purely hypothetical phrase "no, please".
"no, please stop" or "no, I'm begging you" or perhaps "no, you're welcome" OR you could just change it to "Όχι, ευχαριστώ" and avoid all the confusion
"no, please stop" would be "Όχι. Σε παρακαλώ σταμάτα."
no, I'm begging you - Όχι. Σε ικετεύω. / Σε παρακαλώ.
no, you're welcome - in Greek you can't say "Όχι, παρακαλώ." You can say "Μη με ευχαριστείτε. Δεν κάνει τίποτα." (Don't thank me. You're welcome.) / "Μη με ευχαριστείτε. Ήταν χαρά μου (να βοηθήσω)" (lit. Don't thank me. It was a pleasure of mine (to help out)
I have never said "No please" in all my life and I don't think that Greeks do either.
Aunt Maggie said..."I'm going to serve you some of my lovely boiled broccoli." and I shouted "No, please don't."
The answer is not correct. In English we would answer: "No thank you." Also in Greek we say: "Όχι ευχαριστώ."
We say 'Οχι, ευχαριστώ" when we mean "No, thank you."
"No, please." is just an expression to use some recently learned vocabulary.
Το ξέρω, Έλληνας είμαι. Απλώς το "No please" δεν νομίζω ότι μπορεί να χρησιμοποιηθεί κάπως. Πιο πολύ, έχει ικετευτικό χαρακτήρα.
Oh, I see. Yes, well as I said we need to add certain words and syntax and sometimes we don't think of very good sentences.
Thanks for you comments they are appreciated and please give us any other feedback you have. We are trying to improve things. And actually, we're working on a new tree...and no "No, please." will not be in it. But who knows what other odd sentences show up.
So, let us know what you see.
I understand :) Wow, making a new tree is very good news. Please inform me if I can help somehow.
Thanks, keep pointing out things that need doing. Or things you find useful. We do appreciate it.
You use όχι (no) to show your denial on a statement, or to express that you don't want to do something.
E.g.: -Θα ήθελες να πάμε στον κινηματογράφο απόψε; (Would you like to go the cinema tonight?)
-Όχι, δεν έχω όρεξη, γιατί είμαι κουρασμένος. (No, I don't feel like it, because I'm tired.)
You use δεν (not) again to negate a statement, which maybe is not valid, or to express that something doesn't belong to you.
E.g. Αυτό δεν είναι αλήθεια! (That's not true!)
Αυτό δεν είναι το κινητό μου. (This is not my phone.)
I hope this will help somehow.
