"Αυτός λέει."

Translation: He says.

[Stergi3]

Something missing, for sure. Please reject it , Greek team. Otherwise accept all possible answers in English

[ErikdenB]

"He says" is an incomplete sentence. Would "He talks" not make more sense in this context?

[mizinamo]

But that would be Αυτός μιλά(ει) -- different verb.

I agree that Duo's sentence is rather unusual.

[fakename014]

Likewise, I wrote "he speaks" because it is better English ("say" needs an object, whereas "speak" and "talk" can get by without one), yet was told it was wrong by duolingo.

[mizinamo]

Yes, because you did not translate the meaning of the verb λέω correctly.

[fakename014]

I think you missed the point. You can't translate Αυτός λέει to "he says" because it doesn't make sense in English. So we substituted "say" with "talk" and "speak", which are about as close to synonyms for "say" as there possibly can be.

[ErikdenB]

I agree with fakename014. Duo presents this as a full, normal sentence in Greek. Then "He says" is by definition wrong since it is grammatically incorrect in English. Just like you can't translate a proverb literally, but need to use the corresponding proverb in the other language, you can't always translate one verb the exact same way if the target language's grammar doesn't allow it.

[mizinamo]

The question is: is this a full, normal sentence in Greek or is it just as odd as the English one is?