In German, "pants" (as in "one pair of trousers/pants") is generally singular, so you have to say "I wear a (pair of) pants" -> Ich trage eine Hose. Without the "eine", It would be similar to saying something like "I wear shirt" in English.

It is not accepted though (reported).

I wrote, "Ich trage Hosen." and Duo marked it wrong. Keeps saying the correction is, "Ich trage eine Hose."

"where the language had its origin"

Weird flex, but okay.

i was in england once and said pants instead of trousers, disgraceful, being in america and saying trousers just sounds a bit pompous, not perveish. I would rather learn it through trousers, for the sake of clarity. same reason that i use crisp and fries instead of ever using the word chips, clarity is key

Interestingly, that usage seems to be confined to England, such that the Irish, Australians, New Zealanders, South Africans, and Indians use the word to mean the same thing as Americans. The outergarment sense is also used in northern England.

Klar! zB: Gummihosen

I'm english and i frequently call trousers 'pants'!

I agree; the plural doesn't make sense as a translation of the present continuous sentence, and I've removed those alternatives.

immerweiter: 'das' or 'dass'?

Do you mean that someone is wearing multiple pairs of pants at once? One above the other?

True

In English, "pants" is always plural. "I bought some pants yesterday" could mean that your purchases had a total of one zipper or a total of ten zippers. "One pair of pants" or "Ten pairs of pants": they're plural "pants" in all cases.

In this way, "pants" are like "scissors" or "glasses/spectacles", which are also always plural.

In German, that is not the case. You can buy eine Hose, eine Schere, eine Brille.

So given that, look at this sentence. It says "I am wearing pants".

The use of the present continuous "I am wearing "shows that it refers to something that is happening right now. The person has those pants on his (or her) legs right at this moment.

But people generally just wear one pair of pants at a time.

Thus the only accepted translation is Ich trage eine Hose.

Ich trage Hosen. in German would either refer to wearing multiple pairs of pants at once (which is unusual), or to wearing pants regularly (which does not match the use of present continuous in English -- it would require "I wear pants" in English in the present simple case).

mage is not a word in German. Perhaps you were looking for ich mag, but that means "I like", not "I am wearing".

anhaben ("to have on") is one way to say "wear", so ich habe eine Hose an is one way to say that you are wearing (a pair of) pants.

Hose has to be capitalised, though, because it is a noun.

Also, the most natural interpretation of "I am wearing pants" is that you are wearing exactly one pair of pants, not many pairs of pants (behind each other? over one another?), so you would use the singular eine Hose in German.

"am wearing" refers to something you are doing right now.

Usually, people only wear one pair of trousers at a time, so Ich trage eine Hose. is the most appropriate translation.

Because that would mean "I am wearing the pants" (i.e. referring to specific, multiple pairs of pants).

Which is not what the English sentence says; and also, people usually don't wear multiple pairs of pants at once.

And finally, Hosen is a noun and has to be capitalised.

Nika: Where did you see 'the' in the English sentence???

Pants is plural in English. As are glasses. Both of these words are singular in German. Think of it as “a pair of pants/glasses.”

eine Hose is one pair of pants.

Hosen is multiple pairs of pants.

Most people only wear one pair of pants at a time.

What is plural? The English? The German? The English is plural. Trousers (pants for Americans), like scissors, are plural in English, but the equivalent word in German is singular, unless you mean more than one pair of trousers.

Please see the comment threads started by FreekVerkeerk and GhostAlexMercer.

Also, Hosen has to be capitalised -- it's a noun.

Excuse me, but bread can be both countable and uncountable in its singular form. Depending on the context, you can say either 'I like bread' or 'I like the bread'. But you could not say 'I like shirt' though you can say 'I like the shirt'.

The trick is to remember that singular word 'Hose' works like singular word 'shirt', not like plural word 'pants', which is a special case in English.

This should not be marked as a wrong answer.

Nobody can see your answer, so talking about "this" or "my answer" is not useful.

there is no obvious difference in plural and singular forms in English translation.

However, "I am wearing" refers to a current situation. Most people only wear one pair of pants (eine Hose) at once, so a singular translation is most appropriate.

there is no way of telling whether the target language (German) requires indefinite or definite article.

What English uses is more or less irrelevant to what German needs.

You learn here that Hose is countable in German, so it needs an article in the singular, but not in the plural.

The fact that English does not use a definite article is a hint that German probably doesn't use a definite article here, either. The lack of article before the plural "pants" is a hint that the German translation will be indefinite singular eine Hose (with article) or indefinite plural Hosen (without article). Similar to English, indefinite plural nouns do not require an article but indefinite countable singular nouns do.