"There are animals on the mountain."
Translation:山には動物がいます。
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To those asking why に is followed by は i will paraphrase an excellent answer i saw earlier:
Dont think of は as the subject marker. Rather, the topic marker. に is still correct usage for "on the mountain" (山に) but by putting the は after, it becomes the topic.
It would be a slightly different sentence if the は was used for どうぶつ because it would be something like this: "there are animals on the mountain" vs "the mountain has animals on it". An ever so slight difference.
My question is why does Duolingo require the は after に if は is generally considered to be optional in that case?
This course translates both 山に and 山の中に as "on the mountain." It really needs to differentiate them in English.
i've done that like 5 times now... why is 山の中には good for the other sentences and not this one?
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Asked the same question, but reported anyway, pretty sure they both should be accepted in both cases.
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Why is "on the mountain" 山の上に for trees, but just 山に for animals? (it won't accept them the other way around).
上 means above
下 means below
中 means middle
山の上 - mountain top
山の下 - under mountain
山の中 - on the middle of the mountain (or inside)
I believe the issue lies on whether 山の上 can mean only "on top of the mountain" / "mountaintop" or "on the mountain" like anywhere on the mountain, not just the top part.
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It's because animals are ON the mountain, and the theme is "on the mountain", not just "mountain".
います (and あります) require an indirect object indicated by に.
At first, I also thought the に should be optional, because that is true for sentences that describe attributes (rather than the existance) of something:
山は動物が大きい(です) would mean "The animals on the mountain are big".
In this case, the は particle is enough to indicate location.
i think this question has a wrong answer, why "ni" will followed by a "wa" while? there is no subject in front of "wa".
Some particles can "stack" like this. Someone explained it to me once as meaning that the "は" points to "山に" (on the mountain) as the subject. So it means "As for on the mountain, there are animals." (As awkward as that sounds)
My guess is that your sentence would make the animals the subject, as in "the animals are on the/a mountain"?
"山にはどうぶつがいます。" and "山にどうぶつがいます。" both sentence are correct and have more or less the same meaning. What exactly is the difference? Can this difference get lost by a translation into a natural English?
Generally speaking います is for animate (living) objects (animals, people etc) and あります is for inanimate ones (tables, chairs, cars etc)
They don't use 上 even though they use on. And isn't on supposed to mean on the top? Like "on desk"
Feeling really frustrated with half of the animal location questions being で and the rest に and them counting it wrong if you yse the other. I'm trying to see patterns but it feels arbitrary. I've got every location marker wrong this lesson.
I think に is used when the verb is 'to be/exist', and で is used when an action is taking place? So it would be 家に犬がいます 家で犬が走ります
Not quite; look closely at those kanji
動 is the kanji for "move" which is found in 動物 'animal' (moving-thing)
働 is the kanji for "work", this kanji has a component of 動 'move' but you'll also see on the left side there is a 亻which is the radical form of 人 "person"
動く・うごく "to move"
働く・はたらく "to work"