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- Topic: Greek >
- "It is a bear."
"It is a bear."
Translation:Αυτή είναι μία αρκούδα.
21 Comments
I wrote "είναι μία αρκούδα" - that should be okay too, right? Because pronouns are not always needed.
Yes, I entered exactly that - είναι μία αρκούδα - and it was counted as a wrong answer.
1770
I checked the code and it appears correctly. :-/ There must have been a strange technical issue. Should you encounter it again please leave a feedback. Thanks!
"μια αρκούδα" gets flagged as a typο, suggesting that "μία" should have a stress. But the form without the stress should be acceptable as the indefinite article ("a bear"), since the stress emphasizes number ("one bear"). I'm just wondering if this can somehow be re-classified as an alternative answer, even though it seems like μία is the dominant form throughout the course.
In a multiple choice question, "It is a bear.", the 2 choices i had include "Είναι μία αρκούδα" and "Αυτή είναι μία αρκούδα.". I picked only the first choice, and got marked wrong. I think this question should be removed from multiple choice question category. It is too ambiguous.
- 1770
αρκούδα is feminine hence it needs μια. The indefinite article in Greek is ένας (masc.), μια (fem.), ένα (neut.).
- 604
Why does this need an indefinite article at all? I'm not sure how to tell when they are necessary vs when you can leave them out
- 1770
Indefinite and definite articles are fundamental grammar parts of most languages. Indefinite articles refer to non-specific nouns like here (i.e. it is a bear = refers to any bear). For further information about this topic please check some online articles similar to this. Thanks!
- 604
Yes, I understand what definite and indefinite articles are in a general sense and I already know how to use them in English, but thank you. I have noticed that often in Greek you don't seem to need any article at all (when a language like English would require one) and I'm trying to understand how to predict when you need one and when one is optional.
- 1770
Oh I see, sorry I didn't get that from your previous comment. In that case I suggest you to read my comment in this post. Hope this helps!
- 604
Sorry, I can't reply directly to your reply so I'm replying to myself. I looked at the comment you linked to. Let me give more specific information. Duolingo has told me that "Είναι γυναίκα" (she is a woman) doesn't need an indefinite article but that "Είναι μια αρκούδα" (it is a bear) requires one. Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you linked, but I don't see how to apply what you said about the article not being required when the important thing is the action to these cases, where the only "action" is "being". Not to mention, if it's the speaker's intention that determines whether an article is required, is it an error that Duolingo's context-free sentences ever require them?
