- Forum >
- Topic: Chinese >
- "我们有一只黑色的小狗。"
"我们有一只黑色的小狗。"
Translation:We have a little black dog.
45 Comments
Yes, "puppy" is the best translation for 小狗. Small/ little dog is ok as a literal translation and could help some people learn the characters 小 and 狗 but puppy is what's usually meant.
761
Here's another inconsistency in this course. In this question 小 means little, but if you use 'little' as the interpretation of 小 instead of 'small' in other questions, you get marked wrong.
There's another question with the answer: "I have a small nose", but if you reply "I have a little nose" you get marked wrong.
This just causes unnecessary confusion.
So in English we should stop saying "Just a little longer.." and say "Just a small longer.." to avoid unnecessary confusion?
Great advice, I must say. Greatly appreciate your clarification.
I don't agree. A little black dog, and a black little dog have the same meaning. Neither is bad English.
It depends on the emphasis we want to place to on the dog. Is it a little "black dog" or a black "little dog"?
We study Chinese here, is it a mistake in Chinese?
Yes, sometimes we can't understand the answer because of mistakes in English. But there is no misunderstanding here.
- 418
No it isn't. But even if it were, that's irrelevant as this is a Chinese course, not an English course. "bad" English should still be accepted as long as it is clear the user understood the Chinese.
not really, you dont typically use that order. like only if there is a lot of emphasis on the little
小狗 means Puppy... 我们有一只小黑色的狗 = We have a little black dog 我们有一只黑色的小狗 = We have a black puppy
小狗 is often used as a cute way of saying dog, so I don't think you need to say small in the translation
Why is having black little wrong when order of words is a criteria in Chineae
But this is a Chinese lesson, not an English lesson, and there are many people who take this course who aren't native English speakers because Chinese learning materials aren't as available in their first language. I think Duolingo should be more lenient about advanced English grammar points like this - surely someone who types 'black little dog' has understood the meaning of the Chinese sentence!
There is no excuse for accepting incorrect grammar in a language course. Adjective order is important in English.
- 380
I would understand you if you said "I have dog, is black, very little dog" but that doesn't mean it should be accepted
- 535
They have typo corrections in the system as well, there's no reason why this shouldn't be accepted.
- 22
I don't know why this was down voted, because he's right. There is an order of adjectives in English and "black little dog" sounds just a little weird.
- 777
This is literally the worst. Doesn't take "puppy", doesn't take different order of adjectives, just straight ❤❤❤❤❤❤. Never get it the first two times. Absolutely disgusting.
I guess in this case it has to do with English word order, where adjectives need to come in a certain order to sound grammatically correct.
- 403
I wrote we have a little black dog and it was wrong! They wrote i have a black little dog!
The syntax is the same in each language, therefore, 黑色小狗, black little dog, should be considered a correct translation. However, I would like to detract for a moment from showing(off), what a smart(ass?), I am, to give hearty praise to the devs for a superb job, and all the times I don't have issues with translations. Thankyou, sincerely, and keep up the good work!
black haired dog is more appropriate than black dog. black (cat) does not only refer to the color of it's hair but to a more abstract idea.
- 22
I disagree, just because no one would say, "black-haired dog". And though references to a black cat have cultural and metaphoric significance, it doesn't mean that it doesn't also just refer to the cat's fur color a lot of the time.
Such things, in fact, put people off Duolingo. I just want to learn some Chinese and took the course in English because - guess what - there are no courses in other languages including my mother tongue.
Indeed, the grammar and the word order rules are important, but there should be some space left fot the lexical variation! We don't have any actual context here. We don't know whether it's a little dog (why not small by the way?) or a puppy. Please, please correct that!
about the sentence structure... I expected this to be written "一只黑色的小的狗".
[one][measure word "只"][black][color][small]["的"][dog].
That is, I thought "de" followed all the adjectives but in this case it splits "black" and "small". Why so? Thanks.
I'm not an expert, but sources suggest that the general rule which is true in most but not all cases is that one syllable adjectives are not followed by a 的, but multi-syllable adjectives usually do have a 的 on the end. Colour names are usually multi-syllabic, so these are often followed by a 的. 小 is only one syllable, so it usually isn't followed by 的, plus 小狗 (without the 的) is the typical Chinese name for a puppy or small dog.
Summary of suggestions: English accept: black puppy, black little dog （preceded by a or one) 中文 accept 黑色的小狗，黑色小狗，黑小的狗，黑色小的狗 alternatively teach 小狗as puppy and clarify the answers
- 22
I said "We have one small black dog." I don't understand why this isn't correct. Is it just because I included the number "one"? Does that sound unnatural?
- 22
I mean to say, is it because it doesn't translate as naturally? Because you have to include "older" and "younger" when referring to siblings in your translations, which isn't super natural-sounding in English either.
Yes, but you don't say "I have ONE older brother". You say "I have an older brother".
Same here.
