- Forum >
- Topic: Spanish >
- "Mi madre tiene buena letra."
65 Comments
Lost a heart at the very last question just because I also wrote '...a good...'. How frustrating is that?! :D
what country are you from that you say "a good handwriting""?
Very interesting, I've never heard anyone say it that way where I live (America).
Well, in German you'd require the a. I also made that mistake, unfortunely. Funny though, this way Duo teaches me English and Spanisch at the same time.
961
Actually, this annoys me quite a bit. Since I am from Sweden, my English is not perfect. When trying to learn Spanish, it seems most of the complaints from Duo is about my English. It could be a little less strict on the grammar in that direction.
How to select proper prepositions very a lot from language to language, and there is seldom any particular logic. In the language you learn, this is s very important, but in the language you have to use to learn it, it cannot be that critical. Discouraging.
Can you take Spanish Duolingo without the English language being involved ? In other words, can you sign up with Swedish as your primary language, and go from Swedish to Spanish. That would be a lot less confusing.
- 41
it is very frustrating. i have read most of the opinions expressed below by others and i am very surprised. to me, the "a" is almost as essential in this sentence as in "my mother has a good car, a cheerful disposition, a bright mind", etc. so, why wouldn't she have "a" good handwriting?
It's because "handwriting" is an uncountable noun. You cannot put indefinite articles before uncountable nouns. Regarding the other nouns that you mention - "car", "disposition", "mind" - these are all countable nouns ("disposition" is countable but usually only appears in singular form).
I gott'a tell you boys from the north, if I had one, but I don't, I'd be braggin bout havin "A" good handwritin :-)
levelledout: i suppose "handwriting " is an uncountable noun in any language (where they know writing). but in Dutch and in German (at least), you will need "a". so uncountable noun is not a valid argument in my opinion.
- 170
CALLIGRAPHY/CALIGRAFIA, buena escritura. We had it for two years in school. A notebook with a prototype letter on every page and we had to fill the pages with nice copies of that prototype, and with INK. Since blots of ink made Her angry I, to cheer her up, made my blots to funny figures. She got furious. I just learned that the great poet (and painter) Federico García Lorca also had difficulties with la Caligrafía and nearly had to leave school because of that! In the end of this documentary Lorca's brother tells about Lorca's troubles with Caligrafía
Federico García Lorca http://youtu.be/eCwqZjku16A
- 131
one of the guys I graduated from high school with in the sixties is in the state legislature and is proposing re-instituting the teaching of handwritten script. I say yeah ... youth tend to print illegibly these days.... if they know what a pen or pencil even is .... sigh.
"My mother has good lyrics?" I see "letra" used as singular all the time and have never seen it used in plural...
Letras in plural means lyrics of a plural number of songs, lyrics in plural.
I don't know if "lyric" is really used in singular in the same way.
Some dictionaries say "lyrics: words of a song", others, "lyric: words of a song (often used in plural)"
DL REALLY wants us to learn this sentence. I've had a form of it five times and I'm not even through with this section of 20 questions.
I don't have this problem, maybe you had a lot of words of this sentence in your weak words list.
- 436
Well, I'm glad I was typing what I heard, because if I had been asked to translate to Spanish, I would've used escritura for handwriting, and I don't know if DL would've accepted it. I work in a school, and that's what we've always used. Anyone else's opinion? Are both acceptable for handwriting? Does it vary regionally??
..."buena mano" is a good hand so "buena letra" a good handwriting" makes more sense
- 154
Compare My mother has A good handwriting with My mother has A good knowledge of English. Both are correct!
Hi everyone, I am learning English, if you like to improve your Spanish I can help you, and you can help me, add me on skype: iscoscarv
Would Duo have accepted "penmanship?" We had "penmanship" units in grades 1-8 in my school in Iowa (USA). It seemed like we did it sporadically, but it was likely a part of the teaching plan. Those grades correspond to 1962 to 1970.
I think if I get this sentence again, I will try it.
- 170
Frank_X! Frederico García Lorca, el poeta http://youtu.be/eCwqZjku16A in the end his brother tells that the great poet Frederico was so bad in what is translated into penmanship that the school nearly dismissed him. His brother uses the words caligrafía /calligraphy and sometimes escrita/ writing, handwriting. The subject was called calligraphy in my Swedish school in the fifties. I was also very bad at it.
'Penmanship' is one of the Spanish dictionary definitions of 'letra', so it should definitely be accepted. (It is a real shame that many schools are no longer teaching penmanship).
Yes, Duo accepts "penmanship". This is what I just used to see if they would accept.
- 170
In short: my is mi, me is me, I is yo which is almost true
-
MI = my the case is called genitive and is used adjectively to declare possession: my book=mi libro
-
ME = me is used always when the first person singular is an object: direct, indirect or reflexive, it is always ME: they saw me=me vieron, he writes me a letter= me escribe una carta, I wash myself = me lavo
-
MÍ = me after prepositions (note the accent on í)
-
except with = con: with me = conmigo
-
and the five which have YO: entre (between), según (according to), excepto/ menos/ salvo (except): except me = excepto yo
Doesn't anyone ever use the term "longhand" anymore when referring to handwriting.
- 809
Yeah, another example of the stupid way very different things have the same word for them in Spanish. How would you ever know which was correct !!!!!
I wrote handwriting... wrong!?? The translation is "hand"??? What are they doing??? :(
My mother has a nice handwriting marked as wrong. Correct answer being a nice "hand"
I wrote: "My mother has good lyrics." (After all, she is a song writer, and a poet .) But not accepted. (Did not report.)
"Good handwriting" certainly is no good . Never heard it in my university career, so don't tell me that Duo teaches you good English.
