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- "Do not fall asleep."
"Do not fall asleep."
Translation:Schlaf nicht ein.
78 Comments
Take heart! One of Duolingo's teaching strategies is to have us guess and get it wrong -- and if you just take note of the correct thing and keep going, it actually works quite well.
It's how little kids learn -- they make a mistake, are not bothered at all, take note of the mistake if they can -- and just keep going.
When I tutor people in math, it's often a challenge to teach them it's OK to make mistakes -- just know how to check them, correct them, recheck... and keep going. It's often the biggest reason people are completely stuck in learning math, they think they absolutely have to be right the first time or the guy with the black robe and the sickle is going to come calling.
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I do this all the time, even though I've studied German for ages, I have no one to speak it with. So although my vocab isn't bad, Duolingo plonks down a word I've never heard pronounced, and I'm thinking holy cow! What's that??? Then I guess, get it wrong and move on!
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I disagree, that's not how kids learn.
If anything, kids expect to get penalized when they haven't properly learned things they are expected to have learned because they have been properly exposed to it; they do not expect to get penalized because of failing at arbitrary things beyond their level that they are sure not to have an idea of yet.
Penalizing mistakes at things that have not been taught is like asking kids for a word that you know they don't know; then if they don't answer properly (which is the most likely scenario,) suddenly they lose something they had taken for granted, let's say they can't play with their videogame that day, or they get grounded that weekend. That would certainly bother them, because that indeed would be unfair and absurd, but that would not teach them anything, except possibly something about arbitrariness and unfairness.
Penalizing us Duolingo users (making us lose one heart, and therefore possibly forcing us to repeat an entire lesson) for failing at something beyond the current level, and moreover, unrelated to the lesson, is simply poor pedagogy, absurd and unprofessional.
If you want us learners to guess and "take note" of whatever mistakes we make at wildly guessing the answer for these beyond-our-level, more advanced challenges, and yet not be bothered by failing at them (the way you claim kids allegedly learn,) then we should not be penalized when failing at those particular types of questions.
But in my opinion, those types of questions are absurd in the first place. They in fact seem to completely ignore and go against Duolingo's roadmap/cumulative skill tree.
Update: if anything, answering correctly a question that is clearly beyond our current Duolingo level ought to give us back a lost heart, sort of as rewards for guessing it right. And such questions ought to be identified as special in that sense, sort of bonus or "lesson saving" type questions. The student could even voluntarily invoke such types of questions when risking a lesson because of silly mistakes. In any case, the beyond-our-level questions make sense to me only in that scenario, when getting a reward if answered correctly; never when getting penalized if answered wrong.
We said little kids. When a 2-3 year old says: "We goed to the park." You don't slap him you probably smile and repeat, "We went..." Then one day he says it right. Even in the class when an older student makes an error you ask him to learn it. What's so bad about retrying. I'm never sure I really learned something the first time around and recycle all my skills even the full gold, frequently.
I agree, they push our brains to learn. But my point is, if you see the word for the first time, most likely you will not be able to get it right. And there are times which you have to restart the whole lesson because of this. Actually, when I come to think of it, this may be the element that put some excitement to the lessons. But it is a fact that this has various effects on people. Some move on, some lose interest.
@Mechanigenic I guess it's because I restart lessons so often I'm not surprised. :- ) to do it again. The funny part is that when I see a new word I try to imagine the meaning, or see if it relates to another language. So, again the little gray cells get some exercise. Usually I lose a heart even when I'm sure I figured it out. And I agree it never stops me trying again.
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I agree with Jaye16 and Mechanigenic completely. I also am having loads of fun with Duolingo. I've always liked school anyway, and I adore puzzles, so Duolingo German is right up my alley. This is how you learn a language best...if you were living in another country, without knowing the language, or even knowing it just a little, you would learn to speak it by trial and error. I spent years studying Italian...then I went to Italy, and after 2 weeks of asking my husband to translate, suddenly one day, I realised I had understood everything that was being spoken. So I know from experience that this is the best way to learn languages.
Off the top of my head, German commands are made by retaining only the root of verbs - for example, "Go!" is "Geh!" and "Sleep!" is "Schlaf!" The verb for "GOING to sleep" (instead of just "to sleep") is einschlafen; you retain the command portion, which is "schlaf", and the separatable portion, "ein", goes at the end.
Hence, "Schlaf nicht ein."
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Why is there no pronoun? I still don't know much about the imperative, but shouldn't it be something like "Schläfst du nicht ein" to make it clear it's second person?
The imperative does not need (in fact, it doesn't have) a pronoun. Think of it as a command, like "Go!" or "Do!" That's what "imperative" means.
So, the core form here is "Sleep!" - "Schlaf!" (Imperatives tend to come with exclamation marks). In the imperative you are addressing/commandeering another person to do something. It doesn't require a personal pronoun.
"Schläfst Du nicht ein." is not quite the same. It's second person. Not quite the same as imperative.
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Hey guys, I see way too many people upset because of this question! Yes, it is true that we were not taught this yet, but it is by failing when you think it is easy that you learn the most. I also lost a heart on this one - don't take it that seriously and keep pumping!
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Its a bit more than fun... its a little bit adictive... but don't tell anyone I said that! ;-)
"einschlafen" itself is the verb! and it means to fall asleep. It is a separable verb, a group of verbs which are very common in German. When you use this verbs in a sentence, ein and schlafen separates, ein goes to the end of the sentence and becomes like "er schläft ..... ein." The problem is the fact that such kind of verbs are not mentioned in DL. You are supposed to investigate these I guess. May be another strategy of DL :)
Imperative is completely separate from the regular six conjugations of a tense. For a verb there are only two imperative forms: singular and plural, and no tenses.
Imperative singular of schlafen is "schlaf", plural is "schlaft" (no umlaut). Don't mingle these with the regular conjugations. They have nothing to do with them, even though for some verbs some imperative forms may be identical to some conjugation(s).
For instance, for schlafen, the imperative plural (schlaft) is identical to second person plural in present tense.
The imperative singular (schlaf), however, is not found in a conjugation.
Are you asking what the plural form of the sentence translates to? That would be "Schlaft nicht ein."
Your attempt, although incorrect in word order (correct would be "Geht nicht schlafen!"), is also not correct due to meaning. "Schlafen gehen" (to go to sleep) is not quite the same as "einschlafen" (to fall asleep).