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- Topic: German >
- "Deine Hose ist weit."
80 Comments
So 'weit' means wide as well as far away? That totally confused me. I had visions of some poor chap hunting desperately for his pants.
Futurama. "You've been wearing the same pants for 1000 years? No wonder they made a run for it."
1457
Far refers to distance - as in 'located a long distance away'
Wide refers to measurement/size - as in 'wide fit'/'wide leg'
I hope that helps
Then you would say they are weit weg “far away” or weit von hier “far from here”.
weit on its own doesn’t make me think of “far”
I understand you used "wide" to translate to English as it is a cognate... but the problem is that no native English speaker would talk about "wide trousers" or "wide pants." Sizing terms used are "large," "extra large" (on the labels), and more colloquially, "big" or "baggy" (the latter used when each individual pant leg is wide -- which is unusual nowadays).
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@ jairapeytan
I would have to disagree with your comment. Although I am not a 'fashion guru', I have just looked up the term 'wide trousers' and while most clothing stores do, admittedly, advertise trousers/pants as 'wide leg trousers', you do also see clothing listed as 'wide trousers', for example at the clothing chain H&M.
wide trousers at HM
- 202
"Your trousers are wide" should also be accepted. We don't all speak American English here.
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Hello, I have a question for Duo : why have you removed the gender from the drop downs under a noun? They were so, so useful. Now I have to go to my dictionary or Google Translate or Leo to find out the gender. It takes sooooooo long to do that for every noun. I do try to memorize the gender but as there are thousands, it was so nice to see the der, die das immediately. Please Duo, reinstate them ; Please :)
Normally ist = is and sind = are, but in German, Hose is a singular noun, unlike in English where pants is a plural noun. So, in German, it would be "die Hose ist weit" for one pair of pants, or "die Hosen sind weit" for multiple pairs of pants. In English, it's "the pants are wide" whether there is one pair of pants or multiple pairs. Hope this helps!
In German, die Hose is singular -- it's just one article of clothing, after all (you can pick it up at one end and the entire item will come up into the air at once).
In English, however, "pants" are plural and take a plural verb.
I think I was corrected to "Hosen" on another exercise in this lesson.
To my understanding ist literally translates into is but considering the pants/trousers are considered plural they changed it to are.
Hose are trousers ? so why did I get marker wrong for saying trousers for hose? In England we call trousers trousers not pants!!!!
That would imply that they are not here but are far away, but that is not how I would understand the German sentence -- I would say that as weit weg or weit entfernt but not just weit, which I would only understand as "wide" (not narrow).
What about "large", which is a valid translations of weit according to dictcc.
"wide" is not a word normally used to describe trousers so I went for "large" but was rejected. But you would never go into a store and ask for a wide pair of trousers unless you were Homer Simpson (ref. the classic "wide load" sign on the backside of his trousers) :-)
Yes, that is why I opened up this discussion, to see if anybody else complained about the "wide" trousers. Native English speaker here, ex-English teacher, and I've never heard "wide" used to describe large pants. I was thinking maybe they meant each individual leg was wide, the opposite of what is in fashion now... but those would probably be described as "baggy."
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I have replied to your other comment, simply to say that you do see trousers listed as 'wide trousers'. I will agree that it is far more common to see such clothing listed as 'wide-leg trousers' but clothing chains do use the term 'wide trousers' too.
- 1118
This is not correct. You never say 'your trousers' are wide'. You say 'your trousers are big'.
Yes. I would love some clarification of what exactly this sentence means. Does it mean they are a big size, that they are loose-too big, or more literally that they are wide - ie wide legged pants? In English I would assume the lattermost translation but I am guessing that it is actually the first?
I find it wildly inappropriate that Duo seems to call "hose" pants as it doesn't mean underwear at all. Disgusting. Please give me the option of saying trousers.
I find it wildly inappropriate that Duo seems to call "hose" pants
Duolingo uses American English to teach almost all of its languages, including German.
The (American) English word for Hose is "pants".
(And lowercase hose is not a German word.)
Please give me the option of saying trousers.
Free-text translation exercises should always allow you to use the British English equivalent "trousers" when translating the German Hose or Hosen. If you enter a translation with "trousers" and it is not accepted, please flag the answer as "My translation should be accepted."
(Tapping exercises with a word bank use tiles based only on the "main" translation, not on any additional accepted translations.)
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Yes, "die hose" is singular and "die hosen" is plural, but I think also the plural is sometimes used similar to English, as in one pair of pants.
- 387
German "weit" is used in the sense of "loose". Correct answer should be "your pants are loose"
How about breit instead of weit? I guess in English I'd probably say the pants are too big or too loose around the waist.
I thought "breit" means "wide"? Which is more common/correct to use - "breit" or "weit"?
No -- "long" and "wide" are two different dimensions.
eine lange Hose would have long legs while eine weite Hose has a wide waist.
- 633
Agree to many other comment. We dont speak Amerikan English and trousers should be correct
In Kurdish translation of the word pants is: something that is wide and long, damoqopan. for a second I thought the person making the question is kurd
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" Ist is is but here is are, hose is pant but here is pants." WAS IST DAS, BITTE ERKLÄREN SIE. :(
- 1457
You may have missed AstralHunter's reply to a similar question:
Normally ist = is and sind = are, but in German, Hose is a singular noun, unlike in English where pants is a plural noun. So, in German, it would be "die Hose ist weit" for one pair of pants, or "die Hosen sind weit" for multiple pairs of pants. In English, it's "the pants are wide" whether there is one pair of pants or multiple pairs. Hope this helps!
Because the speaker is only talking about one pair of pants (eine Hose).
deine Hosen would be plural -- your sentence would be used if the speaker were saying that all the listener's pants were wide.
Your pant(leg)s...? You wouldn't wear one pant leg, you'd wear two. Unless you just wear your pants weird, which is fine.
Why "dein" is written "deine" in this sentence? I am a little confused. Is that the same thing?
Why "dein" is written "deine" in this sentence?
Because Hose is feminine.
dein is used before masculine words (e.g. dein Löffel "your spoon") and before neuter words (e.g. dein Kind "your child"), but deine before feminine words (e.g. deine Hose "your (pair of) pants") and before plural ones (e.g. deine Eltern "your parents").
I guess wide makes sense. I thought the pants might be long, but that would lang.
'breit' needs to be accepted and it's not. Would report it, but you guys took away the comment box on the reporting.
Wouldn't "breit" be more fitting than "weit"? Also, wide "pants" in American English = wide underpants in British English! So "trousers" should definitely be allowed as an alternative to pants.
Wouldn't "breit" be more fitting than "weit"?
No. Those refer to different things.
breit is relatively objective and refers to external measurements.
weit is about how closely or loosely the clothes fit you -- so the same garment could be weit on one person but not on another one.
"trousers" should definitely be allowed as an alternative to pants.
It already is.
I put "your trousers are long" and was marked wrong. I don't know if it was because I didn't use "pants" or because I didn't say "wide". "long" is an acceptable meaning for "weit" and more likely in the context of trousers. Wide is very strange in this context. In British English "pants" are underwear. This really needs sorting out.
"long" is an acceptable meaning for "weit" and more likely in the context of trousers.
"long" can be a translation for weit in the context of distances, but not in the context of trousers.
"long" would be used if the distance from the waist to the cuff is large.
weit, on the other hand, means that the width around the waist is large.
You can have wide trousers with short legs, or narrow trousers with long legs.
I think the problem is that the expression picked by Duo doesn't really have a meaning in English and maybe not in German either hence the confusion. It is not something that someone would say.
In British English certainly one wouldn't just say "Your pants (trousers) are wide" It would be qualified by saying what was wide e.g. the legs or the waist.
So, I think the the answer would be better as " Your pants are wide legged" or "your trouser waist is wide" However I am not sure about the German.
Your pants are wide is correct but not in this contest. Deine Hose means one pant. So the correct sentence is, your pant is wide
Deine Hose means one pant.
No. "one pant" is not English.
"pants" is always plural.
eine Hose is one pair of pants -- but not "one pant".
What was your entire answer?
Do you have a screenshot showing your answer that was rejected?
fix this
Please provide a screenshot showing exactly what you mean with "this" -- letting us see the the question, your answer, and the error message.
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