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- "Nguo ingalikuwa nzuri ningal…
"Nguo ingalikuwa nzuri ningalinunua"
Translation:If the clothes had been beautiful, I would have bought them
27 Comments
388
Seriously, hit the report button, not comment.
As it is, once it hit beta the course was locked. This means the course creators cannot make changes, they have to ask for them to be made. At the end Swahili was rushed out to coincide with some talk Duo founder Luis was making. Otherwise the course would have waited for sound and probably polished up the sentences.
It is my belief (though I could be wrong), they are waiting until they open the course up to add the sound to make the bulk of edits. This is why it is important to use report a problem and report (politely!) anything that matches any of the problem options.
Huh, the idea of locking the course because it is in Beta sounds absolutely completely backwards to me. What's the point of having a Beta at all if it can't be used to improve the course?
I think he means that it isn't locked completely, only that the creators need the changes to come from reports. At least that's how it sounded to me.
There's only one problem: When hitting "report a problem" I can only report problems regarding: 1) the audio 2) the hints 3) The Swahili sentence
There's no option to report a problem with the English translation
Do you think people are not reporting because they are also commenting here? I think both are equally important. When people see complaints here they are reminded to report their own complaints, therefore more people end up reporting. Not that I have seen any corrections made (however absurd process that is supposed to take). I love Duolingo but this is really turning me off.
- 388
A number of this guy's comments have led me to think he doesn't report, but I could be doing him a disservice.
Generally speaking, I have no problems with people commenting and reporting. Given that the team are even less likely to see the comments than they are the reports, it's nice to know those who are commenting are also reporting. But I do believe the comments are for sentence discussion rather than just gripes that don't impart any information, in which case I think there is no point in commenting at all, just report and have done.
Of course the Duo team picked a terrible time to switch over the website and lose the "other" functionality for reports. And they probably should have at least rigged up something to allow us to get in touch with the language mods whilst waiting on the mysterious, better integrated replacement for activity streams. Just after rushing an unready course into beta isn't the time for mucking about with infrastructure.
And whether they realise it or not the Swahili team desperately needs new members so they can get the sentences checked while they are busy. Pity it's not easy to contact them to suggest it and apply.
cloth - meaning fabric - is kitambaa. Clothes - meaning garments - does not have a singular form in English
from what I can tell, nguo can mean either 'cloth' or 'clothes'. I rather suspect that is because all the indigenous 'clothing' is really 'cloth' that is wrapped or tied in some way. What do you think?
Does nguo mean cloth? Or are they trying to use a singular of clothes? Now that I think of it, trying to say 'clothes' singularly is so weird that we would just avoid it and be more specific, 'shirt', etc.
- 275
Isn't the verb supposed to give us the clue as to whether it is plural? Instead of "ingalikuwa" would the plural be "zingalikuwa?"
- 392
Yes. Cloth means material (fabric). Clothes means items of clothing. 'a cloth' means a piece of fabric, e.g. 'a dish cloth'. A cloth is NOT an item of clothing or garment.
If a cloth had been beautiful, I would have been bought it??? what is this???????????
Fun to guess how the English will be wrong -- and then get a 'correct'!
- 392
However there is still no object infix in 'ningalinunua', so where does the 'them' come from. Is it implied? Or should it be 'ningalizinunua'?
