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- Topic: German >
- "I need a cellphone."
"I need a cellphone."
Translation:Ich brauche ein Handy.
11 Comments
A question: i often hear in song lyrics that people omit the "e" on the end of 1st person verbs, for example they say "ich brauch". I tried this out of curiosity and it wasn't accepted. Should it be?
171
You might see "ich brauch" in song lyrics or poetry for the rhythm. But in general, even casual writing is more formal than casual speaking.
- 1675
In spoken conversation it would be fine, for written comments better use standard German. Perhaps it might be accepted as "ich brauch'". Duolingo calls it a mistake if you have a word that is written like the one you used. In this case, it is "der Brauch", the custom/the tradition.
Several dictionaries list both spellings (one word or two).
The two-word version is also accepted for the German-to-English translation task.
- 171
Yes, but to date the two-word version is preferred. Duo's acceptance of both versions from users is a good thing, but ideally Duo itself would use only the preferred spelling. In other words, Duo should not distract learners by slapping their hands when they use a recognized alternate spelling in English, since they're not making a mistake in German, but Duo should still set an example by sticking to Standard English itself, the more so since not everyone doing German-for-English-speakers actually speaks English as their first language.
- 806
Believe it or not, people still use landline phones, especially in business contexts. A (tele)phone can be a cellphone or a landline phone. The word (tele)phone is to the word cellphone what the word pet is to the word dog, i.e. generic vs. specific.
the tele(phone) = das Telefon
the cellphone (the mobile phone) = das Handy / das Mobiltelefon
Regardless of whether you always refer to your cellphone as a phone, in this course, you will not be able to use (tele)phone/Telefon and cellphone/Handy interchangeably.
That would work, if you were talking to someone in a real situation. But Duolingo didn't say to translate "I am missing a cell phone" or "I don't have a cellphone"
