"Το παιδί είχε πει ότι ήθελε ζάχαρη"
Translation:The child had said that it wanted sugar
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The it is a replacement for "he" or "she", this is an incorrect translation. Its because technically "it" is a neutral pronoun in English. So they are trying to use a neutral pronoun to mirror the fact that grammatically "child" in greek is a neutral gendered word. This is not how translation is done though, it should be "he" or "she"
If the gender is unknown: "The child had said they wanted sugar". This isn't accepted but should be.
The child had said that it wanted sugar. I don't get who the it in this phrase is
It's been accepted for a long time now. Please, do check your answer for a typo, or perhaps a keyboard mixup. If the problem remains, please send us a screenshot of your marked answer so we can confirm it and report the bug, if there is one.^.^
For this translation we accept: The child had said that it/he/she/they wanted sugar.
It is not at all uncommon in proper English to refer to a person as "it". "Mom, someone's on the phone." "Who is it?" "It's a man."
or how about "Congratulations! It's a boy."
Jasper's contention that "So they are trying to use a neutral pronoun to mirror the fact that grammatically "child" in greek is a neutral gendered word." is erroneous. English grammar is not altered to equate to Greek grammar.
The "it" is used so as not to repeat the word "child" otherwise you would have the unnatural English sentence.
The child had said that he or she wanted sugar."
It is also correct to use "they" for example:
"The child had said that they wanted sugar."
Singular they is the use in English of the pronoun they or its inflected or derivative forms, them, their, theirs, and themselves (or themself), as an epicene (gender-neutral) singular pronoun. ... "The patient should be told at the outset how much they will be required to pay."
Singular they - Wikipedia
and here:
Singular 'They' | Merriam-Websterwww.merriam-webster.com › singular-nonbinary-they For those who haven't kept up, the complaint is this: the use of they as a gender-neutral pronoun (as in, “Ask each of the students what they want for lunch.
A brief history of singular 'they' | Oxford English Dictionarypublic.oed.com › Blog Sep 4, 2018 - Singular they has become the pronoun of choice to replace he and ... a law banning the use of taxpayer dollars for gender-neutral pronouns, ...