"Le château a mille ans."

Translation: The castle is one thousand years old.

[LolPepper]

I live in France, what the French call "châteaux" in no way correspond to what we English call "castles". Look in any good English dictionary and you will find "château" there as a borrowing from French with the preserved French meaning.

Dutifully reported.

[Will_Chapman]

I agree. Château (and possibly even just chateau) should be accepted as English translations of the French château, as this word is understood and used in English.

[Sitesurf]

For your information, we call English manors, mansions or castles "des châteaux".

[Uz-Zaman]

so, what are you saying exactly,

chateau does not really translate to the english word castle..then what would be more pronounced translation for castle in french!

[roberto786556]

that's exactly what i like to know too, because he did not explain that part did he? leaving people all confused. SMH

[percyflage]

"manor" which is a rough equivalent in English IMO, is not accepted either. "mansion" is accepted.

[frogcarguy]

I agree. I reported it.

[gtmckee]

"A thousand" means "one thousand" just as "a book" means "one book" so please explain why it is incorrect. Thanks.

[MonsieurBean]

This whole lesson seems to be very badly designed, as to the accepted English translations., so far. This is not the only sentence where equivalent translations are rejected ...

[deactivated user]

I am noticing with all the recently added lessons it looks as though they have been added by a native french speaker as they are insisting on a more direct translation from the french and ignoring contextually correct English translations. But if you report the sentence as a problem, they will usually adjust the answers. It is frustrating but on the other side, each time I repeat it gives me a better understanding of the french sentence construction. It is all useful in the end, the goal is to learn French, not level up in a game after all :)

[lafille77]

me too

[Ringthebells]

"A thousand" is now accepted. Thanks, if you're the one who reported it!

[Sean112233]

Lost a heart for using '1,000' instead of '1000'

[firerosearien]

In Europe, actually, the comma and decimal places are used. So 1000 would be written 1.000, and 1,000 basically means '1'.

[PeregrinaMia]

Sorry, Rebecca, I would just like to comment on this, as I think your note could be confusing for English language learners. I have had many European students who found this point difficult to remember.

In written English, in the UK and Ireland, we generally use the convention of using commas to break up numbers of four or more digits. A comma is placed to the left of every third digit. We use a dot (called a decimal point) to the left of any decimals.

However, in many non-English speaking European countries, the opposite applies. I guess that this is what you were referring to.

For example, in Spanish, French, Italian and German, ten thousand euro and seventy cent (not cents) is written €10.000,70

49,5% is almost half in these languages.

In English, as used in the UK and Ireland, these numbers are written €10,000.70 and 49.5%.

Here are some more examples in English:

5,890,375 - approx. 5.8 m
NB: m is short for million, in this context. It is short for metre(s) in other situations.

9.74963 - just a little under 10

£9.99 - the price of an item that the retailer wants to suggest is less than £10

365 days in non-leap years

64,596,800 = 64.6 million - UK population

73.8% - almost three quarters

0.003% - almost nothing

1,000 years ago = one thousand years ago = a thousand years ago

1,200 years ago = twelve hundred years ago = one thousand two hundred years ago

14,649 - roughly fifteen thousand

500,000 - five hundred thousand = half a million

The important exception to remember is that there is no comma in a date (a year) .

The United Kingdom, Ireland and Denmark joined the European Economic Community in 1973.

The Great Pyramid of Giza is thought to have been completed around 2560 CE / BC.

Sometimes, the comma is omitted in print, or on a computer screen. A narrow space may be used instead, e.g. The current UK population is 54 596 800.

Unfortunately, I cannot insert any reference links from my phone. I will come back and do that later, in case anyone would like more information.

EDIT: References

http://www.gsbe.co.uk/grammar-numbers.html

http://www.grammar-monster.com/lessons/commas_with_numbers.htm

http://mathforum.org/library/drmath/view/63335.html

http://www.statisticalconsultants.co.nz/blog/how-the-world-separates-its-decimals.html

http://forum.wordreference.com/threads/punto-o-coma-decimal-number-11-37-11-37-decimal-point-comma.74468/

I hope this helps.

[vwsheldon]

I used chateau in the English translation, which is perfectly acceptable.

[espenfix]

"Le château à Milan", haha.

[TonDieu]

I typed 'The Castle is a 1000 years old', and was marked wrong. Is there something I am missing? I am thinking it is an oversight, and am reporting it.

[Maltagerr]

"a 1000" - "a one thousand years old"

[Csongor143776]

why doesn't it accept "the castle is thousand years old"?

[Kotori017]

In English you need to use either "a" or "one". The castle is a / one thousand years old.