"I wrote a letter to my mother yesterday."
Translation:きのう、お母さんにてがみを書きました。
33 Comments
759
母 (haha) is accepted now. You could say お母さん (okaasan) about your own mother if you were talking to another family member or close person, which I guess is what duolingo's sentence is implying.
- 1005
It didn't accept 母 when I tried it... Maybe it only works for some exact wording of the rest of the sentence, which is annoying.
- 759
Sorry, I should have posted my whole answer for comparison. If you submitted an error report, I think your answer will be added to the database eventually.
Is there any reason why 「 昨日はお母さんに手紙を書きました。」 Wasn't excepted? I know it accepts the kanji so that's not the issue, just curious why using は after 昨日 is considered wrong. ありがとうございます！
Can someone explain me the particles? Like, I still don't understand when to use に and when to use を. I swapped them around in my answer.
に indicates the direction, i write a letter TO my mother, を is used to mark the direct object (what are you writing? A letter)
を is an object marker, while に is used to indicate direction/destination. You sent a letter (object) to your mother (direction/destination).
- 681
Is there any reason why "昨日は母に手紙を書きました” doesn't work? Why can't we use "は" here, instead of using a comma? My dictionary, jishio, and Mecab all say that this should be accepted.
Is it just me... Or is this the first sentence that one would considered super useful and throws together a lot of grammatical skills we need to remember that we can use for the future? Are we finally reaching that point where we are truly learning more? Was this the final hill to overcome and we can finally grab some serious traction, snowballing our way down this mountain and into the sea of true Japanese speakers? Have we made it?
- 505
It's really a nice sentence, but still a little simple. Yeah, there is past tense and particles に and を, it's a nice structure, that you can use as a scaffold for custruction of many different sentences with only small changes, like:
先週の金曜日、友達と映画を見ました。
「せんしゅう の きんようび、 ともだち と えいが を みました」
Keep going and have fun!
頑張ってください！
YESS I'm feeling we've crossed a threshold as well, I was just telling my husband this once I got to this lesson haha (^_^)
I swapped the order for "to my mother" and "a letter", and it was incorrect. Is there a reason why てガみを友だちに書きます(I write a letter to a friend) was accepted but てガみをお母きんに書きました wasn't?
to be honest the first one looks wrong. the を directly affect's what it is attached to 昼ごはんを食べます = lunchをeat 本を読みます = bookをread (letterをfriendにwrite) a letter doesn't directly friend just as much as friend can't be the direction of write. Hopefully this makes sense.
- 505
I guess mine
お母さんにてがみを昨日が書きました。
should be accepted, is there anything wrong with it?
- 123
Time words, like 昨日, usually go at the start of the sentence, but the main issue is using the particle が after 昨日. が indicates the subject of the sentence so you are saying that "Tomorrow" (as an entity) wrote a letter to "its" mother. 昨日, and other words like 今日 (きょう today) and 明日 (あした tomorrow), don't take any particle after them.
- 155
this is wrong, you can actually use a topic marker as は to indicate that it was yesterday that you did the thing
昨日は 母に 手紙を書きました
[as for yesterday][to mom][I wrote a letter]
the only reason why が seems weird is because you don't need to make emphasis on the yesterday, the important part is "the letter you wrote"
A good way to differentiate how to use が and は is to see it as が denotes importance for the things before it while は denotes that the rest of the sentences is more important to the meaning of what the person is trying to say.
Here is a good article for anyone trying to delve in this https://8020japanese.com/wa-vs-ga/
I typed in 昨日は母に手紙を書きました and it marked it wrong because it wanted me to use お母さん for some reason?
Is there an explanation for this, or is it an error?
- 505
Hmm, I don't think you get it.
You have this construction> お母さんに
the particle に marks where the action takes place, in this case お母さん. And particles in japanese are always behind the nouns they modify. But in english, you reverse this rule and particles are mostly in front of the words like this>
"to mother" ー 「お母さんに」
"for me" －「私にとって」
"in a pub" －「いざかやで」
If you theoretically write this sentence
手紙にお母さんを書きました。
Then it means something like "I wrote a mother to the letter" which does not make much sense. How do you write a mother? And then you intended to give that written mother to the letter? Uff, sounds like something from Alice in Wonderland.
- 25
Confused about ます and ました. Is the difference about a motion is finished or to be done?
