94 Comments
634
If "mir geht es gut" can be " I am doing well," then why can't "wem geht es schlecht" be "who is not doing well?"
- 1987
"Who feels bad?" is generally reserved for asking who feels regret or remorse. It's not a typical way to ask who is feeling unwell. I'd really appreciate a German Mod (or someone fluent in both English and German) to clarify whether, "Wem geht es schlecht?" is enquiring after well-being or regret/remorse.
Thank you kindly. :0)
EDIT: As DanFelker wrote above, "Who is not doing well?" is one example for asking after someone's well-being. Another is, "Who isn't feeling well?"
So like you and many others in this thread I started out feeling convinced that "who is feeling badly" must be the more correct English grammar. However after looking into it a bit I realized there is a subtle exception to the adverb rules when it comes to a certain set of verbs which means we should drop the "ly"! This page explains it:
Rule: English grammar has one tricky caveat that seems like an exception to these easy rules: If the verb is one of these four senses—taste, smell, look, feel—don’t ask how. Instead, ask if the sense verb is used actively. If so, attach the -ly. If the sense verb is not used actively, which is more common, don’t attach -ly.
Examples:
Roses smell sweet/sweetly. Do roses actively smell with noses? No, so no -ly.
The woman looked angry/angrily. Is the woman actively looking with eyes? No, only her appearance is being described.
She feels bad/badly about the news. She is not feeling with fingers so no -ly.
She feels bad/badly since burning her fingers. She feels with her fingers here so the adverb (-ly form) is used.
https://data.grammarbook.com/blog/adjectives-adverbs/adjectives-and-adverbs-when-to-use-ly/
These aren't the only verbs that take adjectives instead of adverbs. In fact, all linking verbs do.
Examples:
Be - The boy is hungry. Interestingly, the response "I am good" to "How are you?" is actually grammatically correct for this reason.
Seem - That book seems interesting.
Grow - I often grow tired after a long day at work.
Turn - The woman's face turned red from embarrassment.
A linking verb is a verb that connects the subject to additional information about it. Action verbs, however, describe actions that are carried out, and therefore must instead use adverbs. The only verbs in English that are always linking verbs are to be, to become, and to seem. Many other verbs (such as the ones you mentioned) can have different meanings to be either linking verbs or action verbs.
"Hear" takes adverbs and not adjectives (he hears well). This is because the examples of taste, smell, look, and feel don't actually refer to the senses, but the way they are perceived. "He smells well" means that he has a good sense of smell, but "He smells good" means that he has a good scent. The equivalent verb for the sense of sound is "sound," which is why "The music sounds good" is correct and not "The music sounds well."
- 2099
The logical subject of the verb schlechtgehen (as with some other verbs which describe emotional or sensory states or changes) is in dative case:
Mir geht es gut. Ihm geht es schlecht.
If you ask about the person referring to said state, you need to use the interrogative pronoun in the corresponding form, here that'd be dative.
wer = nominative
wessen = genitive
wem = dative
wen = accusative
- 470
Is this just a rule to learn with sensory states only? If the answer is "He is feeling bad," he would be the subject which leads me to want to use the verb 'wer'.
Is schlechtgehen about feeling bad as in unwell, or feeling bad as in distressed?
It is all about the case:
wer is nominative; wem is dative; wen is accusative.
- 1059
This is another of those expressions that you can only get wrong the first time you see it on Duo. Why no lesson/instructions anymore (since Crowns)?
You have to click on the lesson circle, then click on the light bulb and the instructions come up. At least on a laptop, I don't think they appear on the app.
- 230
Is 'Who is ill?' acceptable. I thought I remembered this as a translation of 'es geht schlecht' somewhere else.
Who is not feeling well? should be accepted.
In other questions.
Mir geht es gut = I am doing/Feeling well - is given as an acceptable answer.
feeling bad = not feeling well, therefore should be accepted.
- 219
I feel this is a idiom rather than a direct translation. I also wrote who is not doing well.
- 277
you just have to learn the appropriate case we use with some verbs and 'wie geht es' triggers the dative case
It makes some kind of literal sense though, i.e. "To whom is it going bad(ly)/poorly"
I agree, that in English, you would say, "Who isn't feeling well?'. But alas Duo disagrees.
- 215
I wrote "who is unwell"- my response is correct and should have been accepted.
"Who is poorly" definitely should not be accepted. "Is" is a conjugation of "to be," which is a linking verb. Linking verbs cannot be followed by adverbs like "poorly." "Who is feeling unwell," on the other hand, sounds like a legitimate translation.
- 124
I am not sure where you got that from. I can ask in English 'Who is doing poorly?', 'Who is feeling poorly?', 'Who is doing well?', and so on. Adverbs follow 'is' all the the time. For instance, one I quickly got off of a forum while doubling checking is 'Diana is/becomes/seems(lv) deeply(adv.) unhappy(adj.).
That said, saying 'Who is poorly?' is rather informal.
By saying that adverbs can't follow linking verbs, I meant that adverbs can't modify linking verbs. Notice that you always added another verb after "is" before putting in the adverb because adverbs can modify action verbs like "doing." (By the way, the sentence "Who is feeling poorly?" is, contrary to popular belief, grammatically incorrect because "feeling" is also a linking verb in that case.) Also, with the example of "deeply unhappy," the adverb "deeply" is modifying the adjective "unhappy" and not the linking verb "is." It's a basic rule of English that adverbs can't modify linking verbs. Can you really say that a sentence like "Peter is happily" or "The dog is hungrily" is grammatically correct without any other words added in? I'm not sure what you're trying to say with the example of "The moon is pale," because pale is an adjective and not an adverb.
As for sources, here are a few: https://www.englishpage.com/minitutorials/adverb.html, https://www.grammar.com/Linking-Verbs, http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Linking-Verbs.htm
"Who is poorly" is not only informal but completely grammatically incorrect, and it should not be accepted by Duolingo.
- 124
Yeah, you are right on that pale one. That was a big mistake on my part, which I am putting down to general tiredness.
Also, yes. I think you are right. Sorry about disagreeing, but when I read your message I thought you were saying that adverbs never follow linking verbs, rather than what you meant.
That said, I did some checking. Poorly is both an adjective and an adverb. I am going to go get something to eat and then take a nap, I will be back in a few hours. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/poorly
Interesting. I've never heard "poorly" being used that way. It must just not be a part of my dialect. Every definition I can find agrees that it can be used as an adjective in British English (sort of like how "well" has also become in adjective in sentences like "Are you well?"). In that case, I agree that it should be accepted.
- 124
@Gray_Roze, I can no longer reply directly to you, but I would just like to say it was nice talking with you. Out of curiosity, where are you from and what is your first language? I notice that you are learning English, but you also referred to your dialect.
@Erdhase Yes, I'm glad we kept the conversation civil. In a way, I like being proven wrong because it just means that I learn something new, which is never a bad thing.
I'm from Arizona, and English is my first language (by my dialect, I was just referring to General American English, or whatever form of American English we speak in Arizona). The reason it says I'm learning English on my profile is because I'm doing the English course from Spanish for extra Spanish practice.
- 124
@Gray_Roze, your glorious masochist. I wish you luck with that. Anyway, onwards to new arguments!
It is all about the case:
Wer is nominative, Wem is dative, Wen is accusative.
Sorry, I thought this sentence was under "Wie geht es dir?" and not "Wem geht es schlecht?" If you think of this sentence as "For whom is it going badly?", that might help you understand why the dative case is used.
Exactly this is what I was assuming too ! but then what confuses me is Duo's answer. However, I concur with your clarification. Thanks again.
- 1987
Have you heard of the English expressions, "How goes it?" or "How's it going?" Wie geht's is basically the same thing. But, in German, it's more about a person's well-being. :0)
I had to put in the wrong answer just to get the session finished! The correct translations are either "who is feeling badly" or "who is feeling ill".
wer geht es schlecht Will it be also right about asking,who is feeling bad?
Wem geht es schlecht should mean who is feeling bad and who isn't feeling well. They mean the same thing
Is "who is feeling unwell" not a good translation into everyday English?
- 1101
"Who is not doing well" was not accepted, and it conveys the same sense as "Who is feeling BADLY" but DL's answer, "Who is feeling BAD" does NOT convey the same the same sense as "Who is feeling BADLY." Feeling badly tells HOW you are feeling. Feeling bad tells WHAT you are feeling. I feel bad, I think I'll break a window. Like the difference between feeling "poor" and feeling "poorly." C'mon DL, you're better than this.
I may be wrong but then for the given translation ,' Who is feeling bad' the answer may be a nominative subject not a dative object, then how's it ,'wem'?. please, someone clarify.
- 323
Who is feeling ill wasnt accepted, yeah its not the same thing as krank I get it but for the suggestion of 'schlecht' I think 'poorly' is misleading since in english that pretty much uniquely means to be ill.
I said "It goes badly for whom?" How incredibly wrong is that? I worry this sentence is one I'll have to memorize rather than understand for now. ;w;
Brackenbury, although "bad" is not an adverb, in English it is often used in place of "badly"=Adverb. Source: https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/american_english/bad_3 "I feel bad" is a very common expression in colloquial English.
The verb "feel" is actually a linking verb in this case, and therefore it uses adjectives rather than adverbs. "I feel bad" is perfectly correct for this reason and not simply a colloquialism. The examples in the link you gave use action verbs, where "bad" is grammatically incorrect along with any other adjective.
- 1150
Brackenbury, It's a little tricky in English. Feeling bad vs. feeling good is acceptable. Maybe because it describes one's state of being? "I feel badly" can be used in the context of regret-type situations (or if your feelers are malfunctioning) , but no one would say that when they have the flu. I think it's similar to looking and sounding. We (and things) look bad, sound bad, not badly.
- 230
In fact, though. 'feeling bad' is the correct grammar. 'Bad' is the adjective. It doesn't qualify your manner of feeling, but your state of being. Similarly, asked how you feel after a big success, you wouldn't say 'I feel proudly' but 'I feel proud'. If you're embarrassed at a big silly error, you 'feel stupid', not 'stupidly'. 'I feel badly' would only be grammatically correct if you wanted to say that you were really not very good at feeling - perhaps your fingers have gone numb, or you're really insensitive.
'I actually wanted to use the word "poorly", but feared Duo's limited English vocabulary would not cope.
I did in fact use "feeling poorly" and it was rejected. That seems like an expression in American English at least that is regional or rural to some extent. I haven't heard anybody say that for 50 years, although my children accuse me of using obsolete slang.
"I'm sorry the missus is feeling poorly; here, I brought her some soup."
- 230
'Poorly' does seem to be regularly used in the UK, but it's become almost exclusively a euphemism and in the process has changed meaning. It used to be 'a little bit ill in an unspecified way', but now it's often hospital-code for 'critically ill'.
- 1150
And you could! I believe it is grammatically correct, but very colloquial to say "I'm feeling poorly."
- 609
I think the issue here is that it only accepts "feeling bad," not "feeling badly." Accepting poor grammar is one thing, but demanding it is another...
"I feel bad" is better in this case than "I feel badly/poorly." The verb "feel" is actually a linking verb here, so it takes adjectives instead of adverbs. "I feel badly" would mean that the speaker isn't good at feeling for one reason or another.
@Harroghty I can't reply directly to your comment, but "I feel badly" isn't accepted because it is incorrect for the reasons given above. "I feel bad" is grammatically correct and should be both accepted and demanded.
- 957
It should be badly not bad because it describes feel; it should use the adverb not the adjective.
It should be "who" not "whom" since it refers to the person who is doing the thing (feeling bad).
It is in fact ONE correct answer! But not "whom" (dative case) but "WHO" (nominative).
Technically, the English translation would be "badly" because its being used as an adverb
- 865
Simply put, in English adverbs modify verbs. Unless 'bad' is a person whom we are feeling, the correct response is badly. Hey Mr. Duo, let's keep the integrity of English in place, please.
"Who is feeling badly?" should be the correct answer accirding to tge rukes of the English grammar.
Feeling badly is more correct as it could be asking how he is feeling therefore an adverbial response, ending with ly, badly, would be correct.
- 230
'Bad' isn't an adverb related to feeling though, unless you're assessing the quality of the feeler's senses. CF: 'feeling angry', for example - we wouldn't say 'feeling angrily'.
