"They like potatoes."
Translation:Elas gostam de batatas.
19 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
Why is there sometimes the singular and sometimes the plural used? There are many senteces in Duo, where in Portuguese it's something like "Eles gostam de abacaxi" and it gets translated to pineapples. But when I tried that in this sentence it got marked as wrong (i.e. eles gostam de batata). Can anyone explain please?
I am confused about when we use "de." It seems like sometimes the answer is subject (eles) + verb (in this case, gostam) + object (batatas) and other times "de" is put before the object (batatas. Any help would be apprecited
If you're asking whether "They" can be both "Eles" and "Elas", the answer is yes.
Thats what I thought but the program said it wasn't correct. Oh well, thank you
Could you please report that answer as being correct next time you run into this sentence (or any other sentence with "they" where you can't figure out which gender the group's members are and one of the two is marked as incorrect)? Thanks in advance.
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Why is it 1. 'i like chocolate cakes' (plural)> 'gosto de bolo de chocolate' (sing) but 2. 'they like potatoes' (pl) > 'eles gostam de batatas ' (plural, as well ??...
what's going on? is not the only one with this type of error.
They like potatoes is either 1 Elas gostam de batatas or 3 Eles gostam de batatas.- both are correct yet here it says its wring and it gives these exact answers
Because you have to mark both as correct -not only one of them (all possible answers)
They is used for both of them, "Eles" or "Elas", so both sentences are correct
Eles gostam de batatas / Elas gostam de batatas They like potatoes
"how does Duolinguo know if this sentence in "they" belongs to He or She, in plural,,, well in spanish you know the difference but in english,, I mean as you know the plural "they" does not clarify it. It depends on the context,, but if I have both options,,, why Duolingo marked as mistake?
I'm pretty sure it's accepted in Brazilian Portuguese to say "eles gostam de batata" and the same with other nouns
Why is "They like the farm" : "Eles gostam da fazenda" But "They like the potatoes" : NOT "Eles gostam das batatas"
Why does the "de" sometimes take plurality and gender and sometiems not?
Please pay attention, the sentence isn't 'They like the potatoes', it's 'They like potatoes.' However, your underlying assertion is correct. There's a lot of times that articles precede nouns in Portuguese but not in English. That's because it often happens with abstract things and when you're talking about nouns in the general sense.
For instance, 'Love is blind' is often translated to 'O amor é cego' because amor is an abstract noun. People would also say 'As pessoas normalmente gostam da companhia de animais como cães e gatos', which means 'People often like the company of animates such as dogs and cats'. Note how in English it's people (no article), while in Portuguese it's as pessoas (with an article). That's because you're talking about people in general, kind of like applying your statement to all people.
I feel like with gostar, though, it's more common to leave the article out.