"Fusta Gabrielei pare scurtă."

Translation: The skirt of Gabriella looks to be short.

[18georgea]

This sentence doesn't translate well to English, a better translation is "The skirt of Gabriella looks short", or even just "Gabriella's skirt looks short"

[DavidONeil4]

I presume that the english translations given in sections of this type (presenting details of various grammatical constructions) are designed to illustrate the logic behind the expressions rather than to attempt fluent translations. Actually, that is probably a good idea, as it tends to reinforce an understanding of the grammar of the source language, and draw attention to the different approaches compared with the target language. The student may safey be left to complete the translation to local idiom, should it be desired. This is probably even more important for translations from an inflected language like Romanian to a relatively non-inflected language like English.

[cheerfulcharlie]

Body shaming Gabriella? This is 2017! (just kidding -- Thanks to Duolingo as always for all the creative sentences!)

[Pat902783]

The translator simply does not know that "looks to be" is bad English.

[Pat902783]

Looks to be is bad, incorrect English.

[cheerfulcharlie]

I think we can all agree that if there is a problem here, it is that Gabriela's skirt is not short enough.

[annshires]

in an earlier sentence the Romanian was fusta Gabrielei pare să fie scurtă - which is correct?

[Miepsa1]

OrȘ The skirt of Gabriella seems to be short.

[Stijn44]

How to we know it's Gabriela's skirt and not Gabriel's?

[cheerfulcharlie]

Gabriel's skirt would translate to "fusta lui Gabriel," not "fusta Gabrielei."