57 Comments
Totally agree. Just for info - if you click on the "report a problem" button beside the comments button and select "my answer should be accepted" then things like this'll end up being sorted out
Which leads me to wonder whether the word période can be applied in other contexts in French.
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'The period going from' or 'the period goes from' is preferable to 'the period is going from' in normal English.
Just a quick note, however:
"The period going from March to August" doesn't work in this particular case because there is no predicate. It is indeed preferable, but couldn't be used to translate what we have here.
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I agree 'The period going from ...' does not work here. It implies further information in the sentence, and the equivalent french expression would then also be different.
We'd never say 'the period is going from...' in English, even if it is within the rules. This implies a sense of movement or variation, rather than of extent, so it just sounds silly. Someone suggested 'runs from' and to me that seems the smoothest. It is also unlikely I'd choose to say 'the period' in this context (we'd tend to use term or session or something like that) - but that is a nicety probably beyond the current capacity of duolingo. My feeling is that liberal acceptance (in English, because English is a bit like that) of natural usage - with alternative translations provided - is preferable to literal translation if it captures the meaning and overall sense of time and agency. This does happen here in many other expressions. It depends whether you consider the sense, flow and local nuance of the language to be important.
I said going from as well, because Duo very regularly provides half sentences & phrases. I think it should be accepted on that basis.
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Depends on context. The period going from... would be a fine response to the question "Which period?
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The hint under "va" said "I am fine". -_-
I thought I was learning a second definition, as the sentence confused me. Alas, nay.
That serves a different role in the sentence than what we are given here. What you suggest is an isolated subject of the sentence, whereas what we are given contains both subject and predicate.
In case you aren't familiar with those terms, what we are given contains the subject of the sentence ("la période"/"the period") what it does ("va"/"runs" or "goes"), and then further specifies what it does by giving us the "when" ("de mars à août"/"from March to August"). What you suggest contains only the subject, and changes the description of when the period runs to a description of the subject.
I reallly don't like the guy voice...I don't think his accents are correct and I never understand him!!!
I think his pronunciation is actually better overall than the female voice. He does have a different accent, though, so it does take a while to get used to if you aren't familiar with it.
But in English, there's a difference in meaning. You can say that a train is going from Paris to London, while it is actually in movement, but you can't say the railway line "is going", since it's not moving.
Your second example with the railway would indicate something to occur in the future, a building of a new railway line or a new passenger route on an existing railway line.
The period goes on from....was rejected. I would use this rather than period goes from.
Let's not be too hasty, Andrew. The literal translation is "goes from"; that's okay.
"goes on from" would be slightly unusual, but it would work.
"runs from" is fine.
Best English might be "extends from."
are we not supposed to capitalize the months in the sentence or does duolingo just not care
Days of the week, of the month, of languages, nationalities, etc. are not capitalized in French like they are in English.
"Aller" is the infinitive form, whereas "va" is the third person singular (present tense, of course). "Aller" is an irregular verb, but it's pretty common, so it won't take you too long to pick it up. In the present tense, it is conjugated as follows:
je vais
tu vas
il/elle/on/qui va
nous allons
vous allez
ils/elles vont
Hope that helps. :)
In the days of the week ("lundi a vendredi") - no ability add accent to "a" on my keyboard in comments - "a" was translated as "Monday through Friday", but "through was disallowed here. Since "through" means something quite different than "to", which is correct? I know "a" means "to", but the earlier Duo translation now has me confused in this case.
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I think it's because here the French specifies, "runs from March to August" / "va de mars à août". I don't think it would be very correct to say, "runs from March through August", "to" is more appropriate following "from".
Thanks, but that is my point. "Monday through Friday" is inclusive of Friday, while "Monday to Friday" does not include Friday (though it is often incorrectly assumed to do so.) My question is whether in "mars a aout" here (or in "lundi a vendredi") the "a" includes the named end period (as in "through", or does not include the end period (as in "to", which strictly means "up to") The appropriateness of "to" or "through" depends on how inclusive the French "a" is, which is my question here. Sorry for the wordy response.
You say that "Monday to Friday" does not include Friday. I believe this is a dialectal difference, and it is quite possible that where you live it doesn't. However, where I'm from, it nearly always does include it, even if it didn't used to in the past, or isn't so throughout the English-speaking world. For instance, I would always understand something like "1850 to/- 1859 as including both 1850 and 1859, as well as all years in between. I would also understand "name the numbers from 1 to 10 in French" as including 10. This extends to months, days of the week, etc. Surely, when we say "everything from A to Z" you don't consider Z to be excluded?
To answer your question, however, the French is inclusive.
I agree with your statement, and thanks for the answer. I do find that the "to" becomes inclusive in casual usage, coincidentally leading to common scheduling confusion when people slip unawares into more time specific environments. I, par example, work as a project mgr and the distinction is very important in that surrounding. I have also seen confusion arise in school event scheduling because of the room for ambiguity. Cheers.
"The period goes from March to August" is both a literal and acceptable translation
I said "the period goes from March through August" and got it wrong as well.
The word "va" is translated as "goes" in the hint but the correct response shows "runs". If a hint is given the the response should be accepted as correct. Otherwise we are being intentionally misled. This is very poor teaching .
The time from march to august. This was marked as incorrect. Do you think this should be accepted?
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I agree that we've been given half sentences before, so i don't think that's a reason for marking ?gi
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'My answer' is not the right translation of 'La période va de mars à août'.
So you're wrong.
If you read carefully, you picked the answer choice 'form' March to August, not 'from'.
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"The period going from March to August" is a) An exact translation b) perfectly good English c) better than your offered answer
