"남자는 영어를 잘합니다."
Translation:A man speaks English well.
44 Comments
A more natural answer would be, "the man..." using "a man" in such a specifying way sounds weird
That is because the 은/는 suffix is usually used for general statements. So they arent talking about any man in particular.
I'd just use "men speak Korean" instead, then. "A man" just feels weird here.
English, not Korean. And what would be the logic of that sentence? It doesn't make sense to make such a general statement. Even the terrible "a man" is better.
"A girl had no name" this type of speech should only be spoken in Game of Thrones
Just before this, the question was 남자가 영어를 잘합니다 . The translation was "The man speaks English well". I still don't get the difference between 가 and 는
The difference is specification. Just like "a" is an indefinite article, or in simpler terms less specific, "은/는" is less specific and can mean men as a whole, a man, or a group of men. Basically, it's more general. "이/가" is about equivalent to "the" in English. It's much more specific, meaning the man, this man, etc. It refers to one individual, where as "은/는" can be more than one or a group. At least, this is true in usage. If you try and define the particles, it becomes very difficult because there isn't anything like them in English or any Latin-rooted language. So keep in mind that they don't necessarily mean "a" or "the," but rather that when you use them, they have the same function. Hope this helps! 화이팅!
Not quite. I think of it like this:
What is A? A is B. A 는/은 B. If we're talking about A, I'll have you know it's B.
What is B? A is B. A 가/이 B. If we're talking about things that are B, A is one of those things.
Neun/eun adds emphasis to the thing after it. Ga/i adds emphasis to the thing before it.
This translation is so weird. We dont know what thebman does well 잘합니다 Means you do something well. But in this case , it doesnt say what he does well. So do we just assume by context that he speaks well?
It says more than that. You are forgetting 영어를, so A man does English well. Now, what can you do with a language? In this case it is an expression for "speaks well". We just have to memorize expressions.
I would disagree because there are other components to using language, like reading or writing or listening. Sure in English we usually say "speaks", but in Korean if they meant literally only speaking I feel like they would be more specific than using the verb 하다 Maybe I'm wrong, but that's my understanding
No, this is more general then that. I think we would likely use the plural, "Men speak English well." We don't know what came before, perhaps they were talking about children who didn't know all the grammar yet. Then, they say "A man speaks English well."
I put "the man" and it was correct ^^
I do agree that 은/는 is used for general topics, but if you want to naturally translate it to english, we say "the man".
So in this context, "남자는" is correct in korean whilst "the man" is correct in english.
Just a note for native korean speakers
Not necessarily, it is like saying “As for the man, he speaks English well.” or “As for a man, he speaks English well.” So either can be used. Even more common would be “Men speak English well.” for the English generalization. “As for men, they speak English well.”
You can't really say "As for a man, he speaks English well." though. We would need to say, "As for men, they speak English well." (in some sexist world where men in general are good at speaking English.)
When I was using Mango Languages, I learned English yong-goog-oh and Korean as han-goog-oh (sorry, I haven't memorized the Korean keyboard yet). What is the difference between saying it this way and the way Duolingo is saying English and Korean in these exercises?
Also, I've taken to just reporting the audio for every exercise in the hopes that they will offer a "slow it down" option - it is way too fast!
Wow! Inundating the techs with reports for something that they can’t fix is probably not useful. The sound is done out of house. They only have a slow sound button for the Listen and write it in same language exercise which is available in the higher lesson levels.
If you have another suggestion on how to get Duolingo to add a slowed down version of the audio, I'm listening. They provide it for the European languages, but they tend to flake on it otherwise. It is a problem with the audio because it renders the audio useless.
From what I've read, the translation of 어 is "language", therefore, 영어 and 한국어 literally means "English language" and "Korean language".
That's what I originally learned for language. 영어 means English and 한국어 means Korean. I didn't see 를 until Duolingo.
Why can't I say A man speaks English? Or what is the difference between speaks and speaks well?
There is no mention of 'speaking' here why isn't. 'the man is good at korean' not accepted?
Can we agree that x "is goos at" x, though improper is used as much or more than x does x well?
Do you mean x “is good at” x? It is not improper, but it is not exactly the same as x does x well. You cannot say “I am good at English.” to means “I speak English well.”. You would have to say “I am good at speaking English.” If you say “I am good at English.” It would mean that I am good at everything to do with English. What if I learned how to speak English, but have no idea what I am saying. I could be repeating commercial jingles or songs that I heard. So for x “does” x “well”, you need x “is good at doing” x. If you had done it correctly, then you would still probably need to report it.
It should be "the man." "A man" implies that all men speak English better than all women
It may be that the comparison was to children who were still learning the grammar.
https://wiseinit.com/%EC%9D%80%EB%8A%94topic-marker-vs-%EC%9D%B4%EA%B0%80subject-marker-korean-grammar-vs-grammar-10/
There's somebody who's learning Korean that must really hate army's. They down vote all bts related comments
Well, it is annoying to get them all in your email when you're just trying to understand grammar. (but it wasn't me)
