"Was your baby born?"
Translation:赤ちゃんは生まれましたか？
44 Comments
Umareta and umaremashita are the same tense, do selecting umareta shouldn't be wrong. It's just less formal.
I am guessing they are doing this because they want people to finish the ます/ました forms completely before they go to て/た.. and so on.
but it tells you to write it as umareta? for me it got mad because i ended it with ka instead of with a question mark, that wasn't available, even though it says right there that it was supposed to end in ka and that i had it right... reported.
Agreed. I think that the concept they want to convey is "Has your baby been born yet?"
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They're trying to highlight that the verb is in passive voice (as opposed to active). But they have introduced passive without any information about the passive which leads to confusion.
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I am not sure exactly if in the Japanese sentence the verb is in passive voice because of two things:
1) On Wiktionary, I found information that the passive voice of 生まれるis 生まれられる(umarerareru. If you are reading this, congrats! You’ve found a little tongue twister).
2) On the other hand, I speak Serbian, and in my language the verb “to be born” is “roditi se”. The “se” is short form of the reflexive pronoun and is used to form present passive. However, on one side, Serbian isn’t very accustomed to passive and thus avoids it in , and on the other majority of verbs with se show action that the user can perform on themselves.
Sorry if I made things difficult, but a lookout for exceptions and connecting stuff from other fields of linguistics and similar are required in studying. It might not be easy, but motivation and determination are needed in studying any language :)
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生む (うむ) - to give birth
生まれる (うまれる) - to be born - ie. passive of to give birth.
The only context that seems to make sense for this question is if you got to the hospital late and saw the dad outside the room.
The eternal question (again) is why is it は and not が? How do we know whether the baby is the topic or the subject (whatever that means)? It's が in the affirmative, so the baby's doing something (being born). It's は in this question, and who knows what it might be in the negative?
Answering my own question, four months later in my journey: は makes the question "Your baby, was it born?" (asking about whether the baby was born) が makes the question "Was it your baby that was born?" (asking about which baby it was. Or even, whether something other than a baby was born!)
It marked me right even when I used が ... But I see why it would have been better to use は.
guys.. I'm at jlpt N4 right now.. and what's the different between 生まれる and 産まれる? different kanji but same meaning..
The -masu form is never past tense- it is used for present as well as future, but -mashita is the only polite past form for any verbs.
As far as I can tell が is much more standard than は in this particular construction.
赤ちゃんは生まれたか? Is regarded to be wrong in this question, but that is a correct answer. It is a formal tense in Japanese
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Tense is not formal or informal - the tense of a verb tells us when something happened or when something was done - in the past, the present, the future. You are thinking about the voice - the voice of a verb can be either active or passive. In this instance 生まれた is in the passive voice, however the verb is in a plain or informal/familiar form. My guess is that Duolingo wants us to speak politely by using at the very least the - ます form of verbs.
Thanks for pointing my mistakes. I need to learn English more. I agree with you that Duolingo might want us to speak politely, but I just recognized that it is not wrong, and that is why I wrote that comment. I am sorry for the lack of explainations. But now I think that their way to teach Japanese is appropriate, not to confuse us.
Informal/short form usually does not take the question marker か - it sounds quite rude in Japanese. If you want to use short form ...生まれた? or ...生まれたの? are accepted answers.
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This has to be the worst kind of english grammatical construction! In British english this question will mean "Was your baby born or did it die?" It means only that! I have no idea if that is a normal american way to ask if someone has had their baby YET! I can not question the japanese construction. I am learning that. Perhaps a native speaker can confirm if it doesnt literally translate to the Duo english or if it does, then would the japanese ask it that way in japanese!
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This english (?) translation is going to haunt me for its 'born or died' implication, until it is removed.
"Was your baby born? Oh, you didn't have a baby? Last time I saw you, you were really fat!"
