43 Comments
Since we are talking about a belt, the natural translation to me was "my belt is wide." Belts have length, width, and thickness as dimensions. "Grosse" seems to properly translate to width, maybe to thickness.
"Big belt" is not meaningless: people do say that they have a big belt, especially in Texas. But I think both translations are valid.
While it is possible, it would be unusual to say, "My belt is thick." In my experience, all belts have pretty much the same thickness.
translation said ceinture is waistband, i type my waistband is big, they said i am wrong.
773
You have to consider what it is that you want Duo to do.
They can choose to give only one meaning for each word. They can ignore the less common but reasonable definitions. But when you get to the general translation exercises you will come across all the common alternatives and more. You will be posting comments about how Duo only ever shows one meaning for a word when there are two or three that are fairly reasonable to be exposed to.
So Duo shows you some alternatives that you might find helpful. But they use the repetitive question and answer questions to train you on the most common and simple meanings of the words.
My guess is that using ceinture to mean waistband in French comes up about as often as waistband comes up in English. Where I'm from that's not very often.
Yes, but if waistband is provided as a suggested translation, it would seem sensible to accept it.
- 773
Think of it this way.
Duo gives you some alternative definitions for most words they expose you to. But they drill you on the most common usage.
If you use the less common meanings you will be likely to get more incorrect answers.
They do that because that is what I want them to do. The site seems well used so others must agree.
That's just how it goes sometimes.
Gros(se) and grand(e) can both translate to "big", but grand tends to refer to height and gros to width, especially when it comes to describing people.
let's say someone is learning english, he comes across the word bat, he sees the sentence 'he hits the ball with a bat', then in this sense it's the hitting stick (let's say they call it hitting stick in his native language) that then obviously is another type of bat than in 'a bat is a mammal', let's say they call it 'flying mammal' then it's pretty much clear that for 'a bat is a mammal' they put 'flying mammal' as the highest option and for 'he hits the ball with a bat' they'd put 'hitting stick' as the highest option. same thing here.
I love this! Beautifully said! It is not just the Letters and Words... it is the culture and scenario. Understanding. You are so tolerant, helpful and clear. Thank you.
- 667
Yes , you are absolutely right! My concern is the pronunciation of Grosse, DL uses that appalling pronunciation on other sites too, Very poor teaching in this case, Come on Duo!
It can't. But context, always context and it is for us to think about this as we progress. Gros and Grosse can do Large, Big, Great,Heavy, Fat, Coarse, Thick, Strong, Stout, Full. So, Duo didn't give you all of those options, did it? Spanky Botty Naughty Duo! It is for us to think about just that which we translate as best we can, no?
I agree, when i think about dimemtions of a belt i think it is either long or wide. In the previous question concerning grand vs gross you explained the dimentions but acording to your explanation long is the right answer. Plz fix that.
I used Girdle Was I wrong because they were finished last century, or am I wrong because I am No longer a HORSE?? What was wrong with Girdle?
Girdle has a different meaning than it used to. It used to be a sash or type of belt made of cloth that you wrapped around your waist. Now, though, in English, the word "girdle" is almost always referring to something a woman wears to make her waist/hips smaller (although that fashion item is not very common anymore). The most common translation of ceinture is belt.
I have thought some more about why "My Girdle" won't do and realise that a girdle nowadays only would refer to a horse which is masculine and the sentence began with feminine "MA". I do not think that there is a woman anywhere in their world now, wearing a girdle. I like it... learning a language brings out the fool in me.
It's "ma cienture" because cienture is feminine. Possessive pronouns always agree with the object they refer to, not to the owner as they do in English. Thus "sa voiture" could be either his car or her car, no way to tell without context.
"My waistband is fat" is a phrase I've used in English, so would this be the correct way to say that in French?
I guess it only accepts the word "big" for "grosse." It's nearly the same meaning, though.
Well, you could argue that "huge" has a connotation of being larger than "big." But I agree, DL should accept it.
@007. My belt is gross=Ma ceinture est BRUT. So....in future look carefully at the name of your deodorant?
DL's translation is wrong. You could see this one coming, the absurd English phrase, followed by our howls of protest when we lose a heart. What idiot at DL framed this question? The correct translation might be something like "My belt is wide" or "Long", but how are we poor souls to tell?
Can you also use grande in this to express big or huge? For example; "Ma ceinture est grande".
It's very interesting to me that with all of the comments on this sentence over several years, not a single one mentioned what I was expecting to find when I started reading - namely, how odd the audio sounded.... at least to me, this sounded like "ma ceinture est croissant", although it was admittedly more of a g sound than a c sound at the beginning, so I guess "ma ceinture est groissant"
'Grosse' here sounds like 'grossant.'
