"请问，你叫什么？"
Translation:Excuse me, what is your name?
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Technically, 叫 is a word for call. So if you asked "你叫什么?," the translation would be "What are you called" instead of "What is your name." If you wanted to ask "What is your name," you would use the word for name "名字." So, all together you could ask "请问，你叫什么名字?" or "请问, 你的名字是什么?"
You could argue that 你叫什么 is an abbreviation of 你叫什么名字, so the meaning it implied.
The native Chinese speakers I know day that the "abbreviation" is brusk and rude. They recommended me not to use it every. I would prefer fewer words, but not if it makes me seem rude.
Not to mention that "what are you called" is virtually unheard in normal contemporary English.
"Excuse Me" as a translation for 请问 is a bit iffy and really fails to capture the literal meaning of the characters. "Please may I ask" is a much better translation for all the other situations where 请问 might be used.
Makes sense. With the Duo translation, it looks like you're asking a rando in the street their name to try to find a criminal or something like that.
ditto! I literally did the same thing and I was wrong of course. Weren't we allowed to write "who are you?" instead of "what's your name?" before when translating "ni jiao shen me?" I thought it was right to do it so just wrote that down. I know "who are you?" isn't the literal meaning of this phrase though.
No, only when asking questions. In your situation, 对不起 would be acceptable.
Word for word, yes, but it it carries more the connotation of 《请（让我给你）问》 or "please (allow me to) ask (you)".
Am I the only one that the audio for 问 sounds like the sound you make when you get hurt lol
Sure. It's because you used a space. Careful Chinese typing doesn't use spaces (as the spacing is built into the punctuation), and Duolingo doesn't seem to allow them.
