36 Comments
I put "how are you going today?" and was marked wrong. In every day speech I commonly say "How's it going?" to people. So, well... I think I'm right. But I'm unsure enough about it to not want to submit that as a mistake. Is it just NZ/Au that says "how's it going?" or is that common elsewhere?
I put 'how are you going today?' as well. I think it should be marked right, especially since 'aller' is 'to go'.
I wouldn't translate it as 'how's IT going?' because that would be more like 'Ca va?'
They want you to translate the sense of the phrase, not it's literal meaning. In English we use to be for this sense, but in French they use aller not etre. Just one of those things. Besides, "how are you going today?" means "In what manner are you leaving today?" - it's grammatically different from "How is it going?".
'How is it going' is also used to ask how someone is doing, and it is closer to the literal translation, so it should be accepted in my opinion.
Depends on what you mean by closer. You kept the "going" but changed "you" to "it."
It won't let me reply to your later comment, so I'll reply to this one.
You said in your comment that you wouldn't say 'How are you going?'. What I'm trying to get across, perhaps poorly, is that that is exactly what I would say. It is extremely common in my part of the world, more so than 'How are you doing?'.
Ah, I see. Well in that case, I suppose it comes down to which subsets of English they're going to support. May I ask which part of the world that is?
Replying to this one again.
I'm in Australia, and I've seen other people comment that this is the case in New Zealand as well. I've seen some translations were British English was accepted in addition to the American translation.
Apologies, it was very late when I was typing that. However, I would still use 'going' instead of 'doing', and stand by my point that it is a valid translation. The French sentence uses 'aller'/'to go' but not in the sense of literally 'going', so why would the English sentence using 'going' but not in the sense of literally 'going', be wrong?
I didn't say it was necessarily. I'm saying it depends on the pronoun. If the pronoun is «ça» and not «vous», then that's exact how it's translated: «Comment ça va ?» = "How's it going?" However, we're not dealing with "it" but with "you," and in English, you wouldn't say "How are you going?" when inquiring after someone's well-being. In intent, those phrases are interchangeable, but I think we have to stick to more than just preserving intent when translating here. Substituting "it" for "vous" implies to the checker that you don't know the difference in pronouns, and that, ultimately, constrains the translation.
In English-speaking idiom, how are you today, and how's it going today, or how are you going today, have the same meaning. It has nothing to do with travel.
I really thought the question was about transportation, so literally the means of going somewhere (although now that I think about it there wasn't anything like that before. Not that Duo never shows me unseen expressions in reviews.) Don't the French ask this kind of question using 'aller'? I'm curious.
going somewhere needs the "somewhere" in French.
in other words, the verb "aller" needs at least a hint of either the starting point or the destination:
- comment y allez-vous aujourd'hui ? = how do you go there today?
Could someone explain to me "aujourd'hui"? Why does "today" have to be so complicated?
According to wictionary, it's a contraction of "au jour d'hui" and "hui" is a contraction of the latin words hŏc diē. So it's a contraction of "au jour d'hŏc diē". Which in english is "on the day of this day". Or something. At least they shortened it a bit!
[QUESTION]
If you don't mind, could you give some more examples of French using the word "hui"?
Merci beaucoup de votre explanation.
Hui exists in Valencian, which is a dialect of catalan, and means today. In catalan it's avui. It was learning valencian that helped me discover the meaning of aujourd'hui.
There are none that I know of. It only exists as part of this word, a holdover from an older form of the language.
I was told by my French teacher that french people would get confused with the pronounciation of this word, and to clarify that the word was in fact "hui", and not "oui" or something else, they would say "Today, on the day of today, that comes to be in French "Hui, Au Jour D'Hui" .
Qu'est-ce que c'est? = What's this? [aka What is it that this is?]
We better get used to it! At least it often sounds a lot simpler than it reads :)
in French: "comment vous sentez-vous aujourd'hui ?" - a question you ask to someone sick or injured to inquire on the progress of his/her health condition.
