"It is useless to discuss with him."

Translation: Cela ne sert à rien de discuter avec lui.

[r.o.c.]

can't this be accepted?

c'est inutile de discuter avec lui.

[Sitesurf]

you can also say "il est inutile de discuter avec lui".

[lkt005]

... yes we realise that. the question here is why is it not c'est inutile? I got it wrong too

[frogarms]

Same problem for me. C'est not acceptable to DL except when it feels like it. At least that is how it seems

[saunarie]

Farewell my heart

[chrissy77]

I'm confused. For a previous similar sentence: "it is useless to discuss with her" they did not accept "il est inutile" but they did accept " C'est inutile." But for this one it was just the other way around: "c'est inutile" was wrong and "il est inutile" was correct. So which is actually correct?

[Sitesurf]

Both, no problem.

[Lynxtail]

Why isn't "C'est inutile de lui parler" correct? It means the same thing.

[Sitesurf]

Not quite. Grammatically, nothing wrong but "parler à" is different from "discuter avec".
A discussion implies and exchange, so you would use "parler avec" rather than "parler à" to mean it.
In addition, I am not sure Duo would accept it, because they always prefer more direct translations: discuter/discuss.

[Lynxtail]

Oh! Okay thank-you! I'll have to be more specific next time... ^.^