"I did not work the day before yesterday."
Translation:一昨日は仕事をしませんでした。
50 Comments
しませんでした just means "did not do". So you add work as an object to do, を makes しごと the object
But why is を not needed when saying "べんきょうしませんでした" (I did not study)?
Because する/します can also be used to form verbs. There is both a verb べんきょうします and a phrase べんきょうをします; there is both a verb しごとします and a phrase しごとをします. I think Duolingo is trying to keep down the complexity by only teaching us one of them each, but then people start notifying them about the other possibilities and they get added too, but only slowly and at one question at a time.
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Both are affirmatives in present tense. Differences: ます goes with verbs and です with adjectives and nouns.
Yup, that's conjugating する.
する - do しない - don't しなかった - didn't
And if you're looking fora challenge: しなければなりません
:p
I answered 一昨日は仕事をしませんでした。 and it flagged 仕事 as incorrect lol, and wanted me to write it in hiragana.
But in a previous sentence it was "i worked yesterday" and the "wo" object marker wasn't required in that sentence, so why is it required in this one?
This is driving me crazy too. I think they're both acceptable in both cases, but Duolingo only grades it one way. Frustrating, but don't worry, your understanding is fine =)
Because Duolingo handles kanji/kana in an astonishingly inconsistent way. You'd think DL would have registered every kanji and it's hiragana/katakana combo as fully equivalent synonyms. But that is clearly not the case, because you never know for any given question whether both versions are supported or only one of them, and if so, which version is accepted. It is super annoying.
It does not work like that nor is it that simple. There are a lot of homonyms as far as katakana goes, and a software would have to be incredibly complex for it to understand which kanji to use.
I wrote shigoto in kanji (仕事) and it said I missed out the word "と"?! Reported.
おとといははたらきませんでした。Since it's in the negative, I don't think you can do without the は particle. I'm not sure, though, so it would be nice to hear someone else's opinion on this.
As for（は）the day before yesterday（おととい）, work（しごと）is（を）what I did not do（しませんでした）
I left out the は between おととい and しごと and it still counted as correct. Is it because "the day before yesterday" can stand on its own without a connector if there is an implied 私は?
The は after words like 今日, あした、きのう、おととい、あさって, etc. is technically not required. In speech, you can just use a slight pause after the word and it would be acceptable. Really you should use a comma in place of the は that you're leaving out, but I guess Duo also accepts it without the comma.
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This might be a bit over the top, but why does it not accept the plane form of the sentence ie. 一昨日は仕事をしなかった
They didnt put in the extra symbols. How would i know what to put where generally?
It seems the correction is a little inconsistent about when Kanji are accepted and when they aren't. Before it had no problem with 一昨日, now it marked it as incorrect. Same with 明後日、明日、今日 and 昨日, in one sentence they work, in the next they don't.
"私は一昨日が働きませんでした"[watashi wa ototoi ga hatarakimasen deshita]
Wouldn't this be correct, and if it is incorrect, what is the reason? Thanks.
For starters 私は in this context is before the temporal noun which is generally given first in a sentence, and besides it is needless, as all actions can be attributed to self unless you want to be very formal.
Other than that, and changing the が into は (since the focus is on temporal aspect, not the act of working), it's correct. The roughly explained different is
が: Work? I didn't do that 2 days ago. は: 2 days ago? I didn't work then.
In reality it's more nuanced than that, but... explaining the nuances of が and は would take a long while.
We don't know your word order or particle choices so we can't see whether or not it's wrong.
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しごとをおとといはetcetc It's always been my understanding that as long as you end with a verb and put the right particles after the right parts of speech, the order of the rest of the sentence can be variable.
Well, apart from getting the words right, not only is your word order off, the particles in the wrong place, and the temporal noun is not at the beginning of the phrase.
While it's more of a linquistic guideline to place temporal nouns at the start of a sentence in japanese, it is common. You are also changing the verb from topic into a subject.
Basically, in a grossly simplified manner you'd be saying: "I did not put the day before yesterday to work", which is a bit nonsensical.
You are correct in the variability of the sentence, outside of the numerous norms that dictate what goes where and how, but you need to understand particles before that.
I have a question. In this case, は is used to mark contrast, right?
Like: “As for two days ago, I didn't work.” emphasising that it was out of ordinary?
は is used to cast contrast sometimes, but in this case it's marking the topic of "yesterday". I can't think of an example where duolingo would not use it as a topic particle
I have 2 main doubts on this one. 1) In a previous sentence, it was ok to use "shigotodeshita" without using the verb shimasu. This is the reason why I tried this time with "shigotodeshita" again. (full sentence is "ototoi wa shigoto deshita"), but it did not work this time... Why ?
2) Plus, in previous exercices we learn "hatarakimasu" as a verb for "work". Can we also say "Ototoi wa hatarakimasendeshita" ?
The question is "I did not work the day before yesterday" Shigoto deshita = i worked Shigoto shi masen deshita = i DID NOT work. Shi masen is a must
