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- "I wrote a letter to my mothe…
"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。
30 Comments
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.
1584
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.
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.
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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).
- 984
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.
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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.
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?
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.
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?
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.
Confused about ます and ました. Is the difference about a motion is finished or to be done?
