"Can I tell you a story?"

Translation: 我可以讲一个故事给你听吗？

[leojustmeme]

I think 我可以给你讲一个故事吗？ should be accepted.
Can i tell you a story (to listen)? 我可以给你讲一个故事（听）吗？
If English could omit the 听, why couldn't Chinese?

[Semeltin]

As long as the Chinese sentence is acceptable. I agree with the first part. But I think this is not a good argument:
"If English could omit the 听, why couldn't Chinese?"

There are many cases were you can't omit something because it is just not acceptable/grammatical to omit it in a given language. You can already spot the difference in your English translation, because this doesn't seem like a normal sentence to me: "Can i tell you a story to listen?"

[hippietrail]

I guess when they're saying "why can't Chinsese" they must talking about how Duolingo have set the Chinese version, rather than talking about the rules of Chinese grammar?

[LabanJohns]

I think it's accepted now, i just entered it that way

[ArtBurnap]

Accepted, June 2018.

[citizenjack]

Why does this sentence need the "给你听“ at the end? Would "我可以讲你一个故事吗“ work? Im not sure why that part is necessary.

[o-chefe]

Chinese marks indirect objects with prepositions/coverbs like 给. Without it 你 is just a direct object, so what you tell would be "a you a story" which I don't think is ungrammatical, it just means something different. You could say 我可以给你讲一个故事吗

[MarkVernon9]

This English to Chinese translation is horribly difficult. It can only be done by memorising it from an earlier Chinese to English translation, if any, though even that is hard to do.

[roman2095]

If you do Duo in a browser on a desktop computer the previous exercise discussions are automatically created in different tabs, so just keep those tabs and you have an archive of the previous correct answers that you can compare your answer to before committing fully to it.

[rianwardana]

I agree with you sir

[KristinDekker]

I think the 可以 should be able to go at the end, i usually phrase my questions so that they end with 可以吗

[deactivated user]

I get your point, but you should be putting it after the subject more often than not

[Andrea22756989]

I also think that this translation should be accepted:
我可以给你讲一个故事吗?

Reporting it!

[Terence364703]

Reported 我给你讲一个故事，可以吗？ Hear this a lot here in Beijing.

[Xinmei20]

我可以告诉你一个故事吗?

[Juan49481]

Where does '听' come from? The Chinese text does not say 'for you to listen to'. Good translation does not require you to make things up that are not there!

[roman2095]

The Chinese thinking seems to be more like "I am telling the story TO you who is listening". The fact that English leaves out the listening part (assuming it is implied) does not mean the Chinese have to.

[AyaneIto2]

Why isn't 我可以讲一个故事 enough?

[Sergio.NES]

This sentence comes with the 给你听 attached and isn't accepted without it. The one about daddy reading stories to the kids comes without it and doesn't work with it. Go figure. Can anyone explain the difference, or is it just one of those 多邻国 idiosyncrasies not to be taken seriously?

[FHqXhJ]

Why is the 一个 so important here? As Chinese doesn't usually distinguish singular and plural in the noun itself, my understanding is that the number is simply left ambiguous, so 讲故事 could mean "tell a story" (?)

[Henri67787]

所以这种软件学不出正宗的汉语，因为正宗的汉语都被判错了

[Rod37437]

"I can tell a do story give you listen" (literal)

[mjp_sc]

我可以給你聽一個故事嗎？ Is this not acceptable?

[Rod37437]

"I can tell a do story give you listen?" (literal)

[ArtBurnap]

The word 'do' is not present. It looks like you mistook the first character of 故事 (story) for 做 (do), which has the person radical added on the left of the other character.

[julykix]

actually, 'tell' would come more natural translated as '告訴'. 告訴 is used when you directly converse with someone while 讲 is very general. "我可以告訴你一個故事嗎?" should also be an accepted solution.

[Laurann333]

I don't think you really 告诉 a 故事， you can 告诉 a 事情, but 讲故事 is definitely better than 告诉故事。