"他要茶,也要牛奶。"
Translation:He wants tea as well as milk.
195 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
Today (12/13/17) "He wants tea and also wants milk." was marked wrong here, I reported it. This is one of those pesky sentences that probably has a lot of different valid ways of translating it so I understand why the team would be slow to cover all of these. I hope it can get fixed soon though, it's a bit frustrating for me to still get marked wrong on so many basic sentences even this early on in the course.
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Yeah, but your sentence traducing word by word would be with "and" in Chinese which is "he" (don't remember which tone). So different translation
I would say that it is unacceptable to Duo only in that English grammar does not usually allow two sentences to be joined by a comma, so Duo does not offer it as a solution. You need a conjunction (or a colon in some contexts). Either that or you express it as two sentences. Duo solves the problem by inserting "and" in place of the comma and dropping the repeated verb altogether to avoid repeating the subject.
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So here Duo means that he wants two separate drinks, yea? (Also had to scroll down WAY too far to reach this amongst all the people complaining about their answer not received instead of just using the little flag icon to report)
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He wants tea and he also wants milk - so two drinks instead of a milktea, 奶茶。I think people made this difficult for themselves because they somehow thought that it has to mean milk tea. But you could have a kid with you and say that you'll order tea and also a glass of milk. Or just simply you want tea and milk.
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I think this should be accepted with just "and" with or without the "also" or "too". In any case it doesn't sound very natural in English in any of the translations.
That depends on the English phrasing you choose. "He wants tea; also (he wants) milk" or "He wants tea, (he wants) milk too." are fine but "He wants tea milk" or "He wants tea also milk" are not. However... (This last one is almost like the 1st but with out a semicolon - because Duo disregards most punctuation, it's probably best to choose something else; in this case I'd use "and")
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We are here to learn Chinese, not to play games with Duolingo. They are wrong on the translation of this sentence and after at least a month have not corrected their error.
I think you are correct. I think the problem is that Duo basically ignores punctuation, so your semicolon was probably ignored and therefore your sentence became incorrect in Duo's eyes.
For others who might be interested, here is a good article I found on how to use semicolons correctly, including the linking of two related independent clauses as in the case with your answer.
NB for those of us who aren’t used to distinguishing, 奶奶 (nǎinǎi) is paternal grandmother (your father’s mother). I gather that means she’s mistress of a great house (useful when watching historical dramas). 祖母 (zǔmǔ) is the formal version (in most dialects too).
There are regional variations on how to say grandmother of course but maternal grandmother (mother’s mother) is especially diverse.
姥姥 (lǎolǎo) is more common in the north (incl 北京 and 普通话 putonghua). This one reminds me of the word for old or teacher 老.
外婆 (wàipó) is more common in the south (say, 上海). This one reminds me of old stories where the bride goes to live with her husband’s family (so she came from outside 外 that household).
And 外祖母 (wàizǔmǔ) is the formal/universal term for maternal grandmother.
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I too keep falling foul over which colloquial translation to use. Basically the problem is it is not something native english speakers are likely to say.
That's because it's not needed in Chinese, but the meaning is most clearly expressed in English with "and". 他 (he) 要 (wants) 茶 (tea),也 (also) 要 (wants) 牛奶 (milk) - it's understood that "他" is the subject of the 2nd part so you get "He wants tea (He) also wants milk." But in English these are really two complete sentences and the 2nd "he... wants" feels redundant so most people would say "He wants tea and (also) milk". I think the "also" is a bit awkward here because we associate "tea and milk" as one individual thing. But if we use this formula for other items; "a sack of flour and also a dozen eggs" it seems just fine. So here 也 = "and". BTW Google translates 也 as "and also"
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I said "He wants tea, he also wants milk." Not sure how that is different. Why is the "and" implied if a "he" isn't also implied? Would it not be 他要茶和也要牛奶
As for the additional "he" in the second half of your answer, I can see where Duo's system doesn't recognize it as correct. 他 is strictly "he", and if the original didn't have the character in the second half, the algorithm was probably likely to mark it wrong. As for the 和 you asking about: from what I understand, 和 is used to link subjects together, not verbs. So you could say 他和我要茶,也要牛奶。
Well, a great conversation. I have come across this compound sentence issue before in Duo. However, it needs the attention of a linguist, not a user such as me. I simply find it annoying that I have to remember a quirk of the tool. There are sufficient quirks between the languages. But I still love Duo. Great job!
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The main usage of 也ye3 is as an ADVERB.
[To imply 'the same/as well' to a statement that have been mentioned.
我也是 (Me as well/Me, too)
他不是也告诉你了吗? (Isn't he already told you as well?)
我的袜子也很便宜 (My socks are cheap, too) {same like the shirts that I might have mentioned before this sentence} ]
[To imply 'as an addition'. 我很矮, 也很胖(I am short, and also fat/fat as well.) 他有车, 也有房{He has (a) car, as well as (a) house.} where both Adj and Obj are at the same level/group. You can't put 他有车, 也有糖果 {He has (a) car and also (some) sweets.} It's not wrong but weird as they does not go together. ]
Write this in English 他要茶,也要牛奶。
he wants tea, also wants milk
Correct solution: He wants tea as well as milk.
Where's your comma DUO? where is your "以及" (as well as) DUO? you mark me wrong DUO after a direct and correct translation, and then suggest words that aren't even there as correct! are you trying to confuse me?
your comment magnifies the reason you need practice.. Here.. I'll help you: He want tea. NOPE , HE WANTS TEA. Wants is not plural but you have to use it because "subject-verb agreement", and the rule for this is, if the subject is singular, the verb has to be singular, or similarly, if the verb is singular, the subject needs to be singular. Basically, the subject and the verb needs to have identical number. Also you translated "the Milk"... that's just poor. in this instance in Modern English we wouldn't call out milk as "The" milk. it's just.. Milk. the object. you know you could stop harassing duo and in short either learn or not.. you are trying to learn Mandarin correct ?not trying to.... coughh try to learn English... sorry but I'm sick of complainers that think they are better as beginning learners to pilot a course of learning... i mean seriously!!.. WHO THE LANGUAGE GODS do you think that you are?? Either take the course and be grateful and thank God that you get a chance like this or shut up and take some other course that you think is better !!!!!
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I understand your frustration but keep in mind that there are way more non-native English speakers using Duolingo than there are native speakers.
And even if they are a native speaker that is still a pretty strong response for a typo / one letter missing.
Trying to lift yourself up by putting others down... ಠ_ಠ
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... he also wants... In Chinese you can leave out the subject after using it in the first sentence. If you do it with English it sounds incorrect to me.
If the literal translation is "he wants tea, also wants milk" surely the more natural order for using "as well as" (as Duo seems to want me to use) is "he wants milk as well as tea"? Isn't it usual to put the order of additional item + "as well as" + originally asked for item? Duo marked me wrong and I reported this, as (at least how I have always heard the phrase used) "as well as" should invert the order of the items to show that he also wants milk in addition to the tea that we already know that he has asked for.
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Don't write "he wants tea, also wants milk" - either "also milk" or "he also wants milk".
You're not talking to a person but to an app that's been given acceptable answers that it compares your answer with. It doesn't understand sarcarm, it doesn't understand if you make too many typos or use bad grammar, it doesn't understand that you'd rather say milk first because it makes more sense to you. If you give answers in that way you're going to run out of hearts as well as patience. And I think it accepts both "also" and "as well as".
- - Why would you emphasise on either one? Unless you're somewhere where you're expected to drink tea for example? If I ordered tea and milk, I might drink milk while eating a sandwich and then drink my tea afterwards. Because these sentences are out of context, if you think about them too much, you'll just end up running out of hearts.
I'm not saying you shouldn't think about things like that - I'm just saying with Duolingo, you're going to get mad if you try stuff like that. Unless (!) someone has thought of the same thing before and has proposed their version as an alternative answer.
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He doesn't want milk tea (which has its own word in Chinese) but he wants to have his milk with his tea (eventually in the same cup)? (Is that what you mean?) I'd understand it if there wasn't a separate word for milk tea but...
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Do you mean the English translation needs a comma, because there is no comma in it currently...?
I've only heard of comma splice when two independent clauses are joined together with a comma = not correct. I didn't know you use it also if two dependant sentences aren't joined together with a comma. I'm not a native English speaker so that's probably why, haha. We weren't taught much about the English comma, even though it differs a lot from our usage of it.
It time Duolingo had a good review of their so called English translations and take heed of what native English speakers know is either correct or the most usual way of saying certain phrases. This is why I will not go for a payed version of this otherwise good language program - ie to get real feedback from the people that put Duolingo together.