"那家饭馆的点心不但好吃，而且不贵。"
Translation:The dim sum from that restaurant is not only tasty, but also inexpensive.
73 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
1229
AFTER THREE YEARS, it is still not accepted!
But now you should lose one "heart", if you're from cellphone.
- 445
sigh this is one of those ones that Duo just can't get right. Easiest solution is to just copy-paste the answer - you're chances of hitting on the phrasing they want is too low!
"the sweets at that restaurant are not only delicious but also not expensive" was not allowed but should be. 点心 doesn't only mean dim sum from cantonese cooking, but can just be dessert [sweets]
Exactly! I think if you use the term 点心 practically anywhere in Central China, people will only think of desserts.
I live in central China, and I call dessert 甜点, and 点心 is on the signs of Hong Kong restaurants here, but I don't know how often people actually use 点心 to refer to desert, but I will ask. The dictionary says that it means "light refreshments," "pastry," "dimsum," and "dessert."
Chinese GF says: Both are ok, but 甜点 is more commonly used. I asked her what she would think I wanted to eat if I said 我想吃点心。(dim sum or dessert) She said she would think I want to eat sweet things. To be clear, people in the rest of China consider Cantonese food to be sweet, so it's still a little ambiguous.
I believe "小吃" is better for "snacks". I defer to native speakers though.
I'm not a native speaker, but I say this because it's easier to remember. My girlfriend more naturally says 零食.
Thanks. I wonder if it depends on the context. For example, stuff to nibble on at a gathering ("小吃"?) versus packaged snack foods ("零食"?).
In Beijing 小吃 is mist often for fast food or street food... At least in my experience.
- 1763
"The dim sum in that restaurant is not only tasty, but also cheap." I'm getting very tired of trying to memorise the exact english translation. Please keep updating the database, Duo.
It is. In fact, it's even in the word bank. Perhaps you spelled it wrong or made some other mistake?
No, a year ago the default answer used "cheap". This course has come a long way since then.
"That restaurant's dim sum is not only tasty, but also not expensive" is correct, but was not accepted. Please fix.
Because "dim sum" is a collection of dishes, I expected this to be a plural "That restuarant's dim sum are ...". I could understand if this was "That restaurant's spaghetti is..." or "That restaurant's signature dish is...".
I thought the same. Is the plural really wrong or should duolingo adapt this?
Technically an uncountable noun or a mass noun. "Collective" usually describes countable nouns made up of members, such as "family" or "team".
- 1229
The dim sum IN that restaurant... Why not???
Oh, I think these lessons (Gourmet) 不但 awful, 而且 useless... With those names of food which I even cannot imagine. But the heaviest is English here, not Chinese.
It seems to me that it should also be correct to say"The dim sum from that restaurant is not only tasty but is also inexpensive "
"That restaurant's dim sum is not only tasty but inexpensive." should also be accepted.
In English, "...not only... ...but also..." and "...not only... ...but..." are equivalent in meaning.
That restaurant's dim sum is not only delicious it's not expensive. (I should be getting paid for this)
I think the answer "That restaurant's dim sum is not only tasty, but also is not expensive" should be acceptable. To my knowledge, 不贵 does not translate directly as "cheap." 便宜的 means cheap.
You wouldn't want to tack on the "的" in this case, but you might like to add "很" before "便宜".
True, though both are possible, depending on your emphasis. "的" is usually paired with an earlier "是" (which is part of why I say not to tack it on here), but that's not absolutely necessary.
- 445
This one is soooo frustrating! It takes an age to figure out what configuration of English words they want you to use (I agree the solution is not the most natural one) and then they insist on including "also..." at the end, which is completely unnecessary. Such a waste of time!
Yeah they have the words way too broken up. I get it, but at this "advanced" level it is a bit silly.
the dim sum in that restaurant is not only delicious, it is also not expensive
Do report it. (Edit: It looks as though they've changed the displayed answer.)
"That restaurant's dim sum is not only good to eat, but also cheap" Is there a mistake here?
Technically it's fine, and arguably it should be accepted.
However, "good to eat" isn't all that common. "Good" usually suffices, because when it's about food, we presume that "good" means "good to eat".
It would usually be when there was a question about whether something was fit for consumption that we might want to specify "good to eat" meaning either "edible" or "palatable" rather than "tasty".
I agree. I believe my comment above was in the context of the displayed translation using the word "cheap", but they've now changed it.
"That restaurant's dim sum is not only tasty but inexpensive too" should be accepted!
A possessive would really help here. I didn't see the "from" and used "of" and got it right, but I wanted to translate this as "That restaurant's dim sum is not only delicious but also not expensive."
- 445
"The dim sum from that restaurant is not only tasty but inexpensive" is rejected. Please fix! (The "also" in the Duo translation actually makes the sentence a bit laboured and isn't the best translation I think)
The pickiness of the computer for translating this English idiom is absurd. It has to always be "not only... but also..." As a native speaker, I hardly ever even say it that way. But if you put "It's not only tasty but inexpensive too," it's not accepted. "It's not just tasty but inexpensive," not accepted. "It's not only tasted but inexpensive as well," not accepted.
Do report alternatives, and they'll likely be added to the database eventually.
They all have to be entered by humans. This is painstaking work, and many sentences have hundreds of translations already entered. Some even have thousands.
(In fact, the longest list of accepted answers that I know of for a question in the Chinese course has over 30,000 entries, though that question is an English-to-Chinese translation. However, unfortunately, from what I've seen, a significant proportion of the answers in such longer lists are clearly wrong, which is perhaps a more serious problem, because "My answer should not have been accepted" is much less likely to be reported, and learners might think their Chinese is correct when it's not.)
We should be given double xp. One for learning Chinese, the other for suffering through pidgin English.
- 994
Not only is that restaurants dim sum tasty, but also inexpensive. Should this not be accepted?
No, because if you put "not only" before the verb and the subject, you need another subject and verb after "but also": "... but it is also...".
I resorted to copy and paste—this one is ridiculously picky and I can't even guess what the point is.
"At that restaurant" is more natural to a native English speaker.
- 28
It's just good to know more ways to express things I guess. Also I think "cheap/pianyi/便宜" and "not expensive/不贵" can be different things or at least bear different connotations.
Not in North American English, and from what I can tell from articles online, not in British English either. It's an uncountable (mass) noun, and uses a singular verb.
Assuming you got a listening exercise or translated to Chinese from English, it's likely that you put a space after the comma. Duo rejects spaces in Chinese, as spacing is built into the punctuation.
