"Is this Saturday the ninth?"

Translation: 今週の土曜日は九日ですか？

[2manynames]

The english translation is ambiguous, when trying to translate to japanese. I read it as Is this (ie. today) Saturday the 9th rather than Is this Saturday, the 9th. I would suggest a comma to clarify - Is this Saturday, the 9th?

[Korrigan_]

Understood it the same way, I guess we just have to remember what Duo is asking of us.

[dsnell99]

Pretty sure the の in there creates the phrase, if you will: "This week's Saturday" or "the Saturday of this week". So, essentially, the sentence is saying: Is "this week's Saturday" the 9th. No comma because "today" is not implied.

[Rogierownage]

"Is this week's saturday the ninth?" Would be even better

[BMGX4H]

"as for this week's Saturday, is it the 9th day?"

[Edikan2]

Why is this sentence like this?

[insanity54]

今週 (this week)

の (Shows belonging)

土曜日(Saturday)

は (Topic marker)

九日 (9th day)

です (Polite ending)

か (Asking a question)

[AlexanderC112214]

They should have these kind of explanations.

[AlexanderC112214]

I don't understand why we need the first part though

[IsolaCiao]

In Japanese you have to say "this week's Saturday" to specify "this Saturday" rather than any other Saturday. Is that what you're asking?

[Buccaneer007]

ちょうだいね

[sora_Japan]

Why is why?

[MaynardHogg]

The English or the Japanese?
My translation would have been: 今度の土曜日は9日ですか？

[ngochung72]

The English sentence do not mentions " this week".

[AndrewMast2]

I guess in Japanese you say "this week's Saturday" instead of "this Saturday"

[MaynardHogg]

That is one possibility, but above I gave another.

[Chris319610]

It's because it's asking about THIS Saturday (which could be the Saturday of this week)

[JFed-9]

I agree, it was misleading. I think it was referring to "This Saturday" meaning the Saturday of this week.

[vngdhuyen]

true, but the Saturday of this week is this Saturday

[T33K3SS3LCH3N]

"This saturday" was considered as "this week's saturday" for the sake of translation. It's sensible but pretty confusing for translations like this.

[starsprung]

今週の土曜日は九日ですか

[JSnow20]

Is the の necessary?

[MaynardHogg]

Is this context, I'd say yes, but normally no.
今週土曜日、映画を観に行きませんか？

[IntelgntLife]

Really weird sentence overall. Makes sense in Japanese yet sounds pretty absurd in English.

[Dylan_Nicholson]

The English is ambiguous though - it can mean "is this day Saturday the 9th", or "is it the 9th on this Saturday". The former you might use if somebody was talking about a day or an event and you wanted to clarify they meant "Saturday the 9th". I don't know how you'd ask that in Japanese - I tried これは土曜日9日なの？ but not accepted.

[rtxanson]

It seems like Duolingo could come up with a way to use the readings of the kanji selected for the full sentence in the tiles. I realize the better option is to just enable writing mode, but some folks may find it extremely useful to hear the correct reading when clicking the tiles.

[SarrahW]

I agree with other comments that this one is ambiguous, but I get what it's trying to say: "Is this coming Saturday (or this week's Saturday) the 9th?"

However, if you were trying to say "Is this (as in, today) Saturday the 9th?", would that be "これは九日の土曜日ですか？" or "今日は九日の土曜日ですか？" Or would it be said another way entirely?

[IsolaCiao]

今日は九日の土曜日ですか should be correct.

[SarrahW]

Thank you!

[Ymdsh]

I got it interchanged and wrote 九日は今週の土曜日ですか..