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- "Two plus two makes four."
"Two plus two makes four."
Translation:Deux plus deux font quatre.
33 Comments
50
Would the French ever say "Deux plus deux sont quatre."? I put "... est quatre", but I can now see that that is wrong.
I feel your frustration with the owl.
On the other hand I can also see the logic in excluding possible answers to a question, for example where there's a direct word-for-word translation that's exactly equivalent across the two languages, and that's what the question is designed to point out. Sometimes it helps to try to figure out what the less obvious "lesson" of the question might be (even if it might not be an intentional one).
Of course it's not a perfect program, and ambiguity abounds, but that is to some extent a property of language itself, and it can be fortifying to wrestle with it.
Personally I think it's probably not a bad strategy to aim for the most direct translation, as that can help to build a framework of connections between the base and target languages, and it can also help to root out faux amis where the presumed direct translation is actually wrong.
It can also be helpful, as I imagine you've noticed, to compare a translation accepted by the program to a more idiomatic alternative also provided by it. And another strategy is to try different answers to repeat questions, to discover the range of accepted answers. Fortunately there are no permanent consequences of having one's answer rejected.
And if you find a problem and report it and it doesn't get fixed, consider Duo a quirky stubborn friend and agree to disagree.
Bon courage.
1215
I used " deux plus deux fait quatre" but was told that was wrong and it should be font. Why?