"我们可以坐公共汽车去学校吗？"
Translation:Can we take a bus to the school?
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公 (gōng) = public/collectively owned
共 (gòng) = common/general/to share
汽 (qì) = steam/vapor
车 (chē) = car/vehicle
公共汽车 (gōnggòng qìchē) = public common steam vehicle = bus
Thank you! I wish duo would teach us the meaning of individual characters like this as well.
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Report it. There are tons of alternate answers missing. They don't accept much Taiwanese Mandarin, either.
我們可以坐公共汽車去學校嗎？
In Taiwan, "巴士"(bāshì) and "公車" are more commonly used, while people in (Mainland) China tend to use "公交车"(gōngjiāochē). "公共汽車/公共汽车" is a formal word for them.
I think a better transaltion would be: 'can we take the bus to go to school'
both should be accepted, but I that seems more accurate
You only accept "can" for some of these, and only "will" for others, both should be accepted
Haha! I never thought of that (I'm in California). To take a bus to school sounds (if you are not accustomed to the phrase) like you are driving the bus there, or putting a bus in your pocket to take to school. I'm 54 years old and have only spoken Anerican English my entire life.
"Can we use the bus to school?" is not correct english and should not be offered as a "correct" translation
Can you say 我们会坐公共汽车去学校？ as opposed to 我们可以坐公共汽车去学校？If not, are there some rules governing the different use cases of 会 and 可以 in this context?
会 means future tense, or "will". 可以 loosely translates to "can"/"allowed to"/"able to"/"willing to".
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会 can also mean "able to", but I think it is more about your own skills eg 我不会说汉语. Riding the bus isn't really a skill, so 会 doesn't work here.
"Will we take the bus to school?" should also be accepted.
In other exercises, 可以 is translated as 'will', and 'can' is not accepted. I know it's still in Beta, but I'm doing so much reporting. I'm at the point where I'm spending more time trying to remember what answers will be accepted, rather than focusing on learning.
That's the life of a beta tester! In return, you get early access. You can always leave the course for now and come back later when it's more stable. Meanwhile, you can learn on HelloChinese phone app, where I've almost never seen missing answers :)
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My mainland Chinese colleagues use gong gong qi che. Ba shi is more commonly used in Southeast Asia, although the mainlanders recognize it as a synonym for bus..
Agreed. I found this strange. Chinese lacks (in)definite articles, so there's no way of knowing whether the bus or the school is the indefinite part... Unless word order is our clue?
Doesn't "can we take a bus to the school" sound like you're asking whether it's allowed to bring a bus when going to a particular school? A more natural form (to me) seems "Can we take a bus to (get/go to) school?"
Can we go to school on the bus? This is what an English child would say.
