"我姓李,你呢?"
Translation:My last name is Li, and yours?
249 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
806
They're not going to be scarred for life by seeing one word, come on. And it's better if they don't embarrass themselves by using the wrong word for "last name" :)
1877
That argument makes no sense. You're saying "name" can mean last name, and 性 does mean last name, so therefore it shouldn't be accepted? What?
Therefore it's only reasonable they would only accept an unambiguous answer! For instance, in English "brother" can mean either younger or older, but they shouldn't accept "brother" as valid answer for 哥哥 because that doesn't help you associate 哥哥 with "older brother"!
Translating 姓 to "name", though possibly correct, doesn't help you associate 姓 with surname!
I don't understand the mindset of most comments here, it's a language course, not a translation course, and people seem to don't get it!
Usually, when people introduce themselves in China, they often use their last name or surname. They say their full name only when they get close/ want to get close to someone. So the last name actually serves as a person's "name", and, they would prefer that you call them with their last name. Thus, "name" as a translation of 姓 sould be accepted.
but it's a beginners introduction to the language, they are being taught what the words accurately mean formally. it's marked incorrect so that you dont forget that 姓 is formally used for last name, if they marked it correct that allows you to be lazier and miss out. Is writing "last name" really that hard?
@Andrew - because there is no word for "full name" in English. If I was learning English, I could have given you similar logic while quoting Hindi sentences and prove to you that people 'run with their feet on their head' when scared; or that I will show you such power that 'you will remember your maternal grandmother'. :-) All perfect sentences in Hindi. But I am fully aware that by quoting Bollywood heroes (a la James Bond), I wouldn't have improved my English. So I focused on learning English rather than converting it into Hindi. Just my 2 cents.
63
That is true. There is also a certain 'style' to each language; this is especially true for Chinese. There are few grammar rules, but countless ways of saying things that wouldn't sound 'right', or would show that you are from a certain region, or things that people from the 'North' tend to say vs things 'Southerners' say, and so on and so forth. This, together with pronunciation, is what I think is most difficult for Chinese language learners.
37
Not really. That's not a Chinese thing to do. Each word has its own tone, and if you ended a question with a high pitch, it might change the meaning of the sentence altogether.
We are not going to master Chinese if we spend too much of our Duo time discussing these matters instead of trying to get to the next level. I am fascinated with the arguments and explanations, but I think the more time we devote to studying the better. And perhaps paying attention to detail and accepting that language is an arbitrary conventional thing. I must admit that I have been held up by spending time looking at comments. I want to bring all my language levels up faster than I am achieving that now. But I must say that it is nice to see how everyone thinks and how things are explained, etc, and often enlightening.
"I'm surnamed Li" should be accepted, since "surnamed" can act as a past participle verb in English, much like "I'm named Ken, after my father" would work. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/surnamed The following are several answers I've submitted on questions like these:
"My last name is Li" = 18 characters [accepted answer, not very concise]; "My surname's Li" = 15 characters [accepted answer, but says "you missed a space" since the "'s" on surname is thought to have been a typo of "surname is" -- although contracting nouns in this way is grammatically correct]; "I'm surnamed Li" = 15 characters [marked incorrect]
Sorry to bore folks with the details -- I just thought it could be useful to Duolingo staff.
195
This is newbie question, but I thought that "my" in Mandarin was "wǒ" followed by the possessive "de" as in "wǒ de péngyǒu", my friend.
This lesson makes it seem like wǒ alone can also mean "my". Can someone help me to understand when wǒ should be used, and when "wǒ de" should be used?
"Li" is the correct pinyin spelling (this is the official romanization in mainland China.) However, some Chinese people, such as those whose families have been in Western countries since before pinyin was invented, may have tranliterated 李 in different ways. So there might be people with the last name "Lee" that came from the character 李。But in general Li (or really, Lǐ) is the correct way to transliterate 李.
And they should also accept
"I am Li, may I know who you are?"
"You can call me Li, what's your name?"
"I'm known as Li, how about you?"
Let's also work out the other hundreds of ways other movie characters say things and then compile a dictionary just for this one Chinese sentence.
Then we can go on to compile another two hundred page dictionary for the next Chinese sentence.
And in about hundred years we will clear Level one of Chinese to start conversing with kindergarten kids. ;-)
127
The app didn't provide a tile with just the last name (xing). There's therefore no way to answer the question correctly.
1046
Sorry - don't have the characters available on the keyboard.
Question - I though "wo" was I/me. Doesn't it need "de" to be possessive and to be "My". I think it would be more accurate to say "I am named Li" than "My name is Li"
I'm a little confused by the character "我". It was used as "叫我..." to mean "Call me..." but the two characters can also be switched, as in "我叫..." and have the same meaning. I first assumed "我" meant "I" or "me" and then I see a sentence where it can also be used to mean "my." Am I missing something, or does "我" have all three translations?
I think it is used both as first person singular subject and possessor. Pluralized it appears used as "we" and "our".
Sorry. For the time being and to the best of my knowledge... I haven't, so far, the foggiest clue! Cheers! And... Good luck! If I find out soon I'll let you know!
65
Its a minor thing but I wish it would take note of subtle changes to the words that can occur due to autocorrect. Names like Li get changed to Lisa and its annoying to have a streak broken because of that
Lee is pronounced something between and l and an r. Assimilation again, I imagine?