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- "你有哥哥吗？"
"你有哥哥吗？"
Translation:Do you have an older brother?
51 Comments
170
Chinese are really specific with the family, have words for each individual in the family, 哥哥older brother, 弟弟younger brother, 姐姐older sister, 妹妹younger sister.
Chinese always says what kind of relative. Ge ge means older brother Didi means younger brother Mei mei is younger sister Jie jie means older sister Omniglot has a chart https://www.omniglot.com/language/kinship/chinese.htm
Older brother and younger brother are written differently. 哥哥 is older brother while 弟弟 is younger brother.
哥 is older brother. Didn't learn the character for the younger one yet ;-)
Oh. The characters for 'brother' are different from the other way to write 'brother' in chinese. This one is 'older brother'
There is no need for the character for 'older'
哥哥 - can be both plural and singular.
In most other learning apps I use, "an older brother" is actually specified as "一个哥哥" and "哥哥" without a measure word is considered the plural form.
Because it's gramatically wrong and it'll make more sense if it's "do you have an older brother?"
Are these two questions asked the same way? Does he have older brothers? Vs Does he have an older brother?
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Yes, it is the same question.
You could also ask: "他有一个哥哥吗？", but that would rather mean that someone told you about this one elder brother and your ask this question in disbelief: "He has an older brother?! I had no idea!"
i answered "do you have older brother" and i get an error saying it is "brothers", why? how do i know when it is singular and when it is plural? there is no xie in the sentence.
The singular is correct (see the answer at the top of the page). Your answer was wrong because the singular has to be "do you have AN older brother?". You cannot leave out the indefinite article for the singular, but you can for the plural "do you have older brothers?" If your answer is wrong Duo tries to give a correct version that is close to your answer, so it came up with "do you have older brothers?" I cannot help with the Chinese, but I assume that if Duo suggested the plural form then they are both correct.
- 115
Actually "elder brother" is fine and should be accepted - it's more common in some English speaking countries than others. I say that as a native speaker who has three elder brothers :)
I have the same problem. This seems to be a common thing in Duolingo, at least with Chinese questions. Does it happen in real life as well? Or is this just a recording problem? Anybody know?
Hi, the above sentence means "do you have an older brother". When I gave this answer, it showed me wrong and suggested "Do you have older brothers?" which I think is wrong. Thank you.
for future reference, most people will say ni you mei you ge ge? (this is a little weird)
Exactly. Because ma/吗 is used for yes/no-questions you can also use you mei you/有没有 instead of ma/吗。
Do you have an older brother? -你有哥哥吗? -你有没有哥哥?
The yes/no-form is always built with the verb of the question.
Example: Is he an older brother? - 他是不是哥哥? -他是哥哥吗?
I would change the Chinese sentence to "你有个哥哥吗？" As it is originally, the sentence could be translated to "Do you have older brothers?" in English. Since the plural of 哥哥 is still 哥哥, the 个 would mean "a" here.
I think for that to be the case you must include an 一. It would be 你有一个哥哥
Duolingo translates "Do you have an older brother?" into "你有哥哥吗?"
Without a measure word "哥哥" can be singular or plural. It refers to brother or brothers, but Dulingo only accepts the singular right now.
"吗" is always used for yes/no-questions.
A better translation of "Do you have an older brother?" is 你有一个哥哥吗? In this case 一个 is "a". Now the question asks for one brother only!
你有哥哥吗? would generelly be translated as "Do you have any brothers?"
Another way to ask "Do you have a brother?" is 你有没有哥哥? Instead of adding the question marker 吗 the verb of the question is used in its yes/no-form 有没有.
Both 吗 and 有没有 ask for yes/no answers.
Dialog example: Person A: 你有哥哥吗? Person B: 有，我有一个哥哥。
The verb is used as the affirmative and it is specified how many brothers Person B has.
There's no reason for "an older brother".. It should be older brother
how would you say "do you have older brothers?" The same way???? then how coild you tell te difference when you talk to someone???
So, is this asking do you have any older brothers or just do you have an older brother?
I answer "Do you have brother?" And system replay: "You have a typo. Do you have brothers?" I didn't type, just had the chance to choose words and copy-paste, and there was not a word "brothers", but only "brother"
Translation showed that there is brotherS. Which charakter shows that there is more than one?
At the moment (Family 1, lesson 2) all we're taught is that gege is 'brother' not older not younger.
There was no 'a' and the answer wanted 'brothers' but there was no option for this either. So I just answered with brother and this was accepted. Not the best solution in the world but still!
When you have two first toned characters, isn't one of the characters suppose to be pronounced as a third tone? I might ne wrong, I just want to make sure
