"中国人怎么过新年？"
Translation:How do Chinese people spend New Year's?
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It's possible, if implying "each new year", though "New Year's", with an apostrophe (short for New Year's Eve and New Year's Day) is a common way to refer to the celebratory event, in which case we don't refer to "years", plural.
(Alternatively it could also be "celebrate the new year".)
Only if you're speaking about multiple years (e.g. How do German people spend Christmases). Otherwise, Year's is possessive.
The plural "years" works for referring to actual new years, but the question is still potentially fraught when talking about the event.
In other words, how do we pluralize "New Year's"? Is it "New Years' ", short for "New Years' Eves" or "New Years' Days", or is it perhaps "New Year'ses" (which seems unlikely ever to be said out loud)?
Probably the best way to do it is just to leave it as "New Year's", as we can refer to one New Year's Eve, or two or more New Year's Eves, and "How do Chinese people celebrate New Year's" suggests the general case anyway, as would "How do Germans celebrate Christmas", so no plural is really necessary in most contexts.
过 means spend. There is another word entirely for 'celebrate' which, in all honesty, I think a native speaker would rather use. Although context is in your favour, this scentence just has a certain translation
"New Year's" is the correct term. It is short for New Year's Day or New Year's Eve
Except it should be "New Year's" or "the new year" (not "New Year" or "new year" on its own, typically), as others have mentioned.
(At least this is the case in North America in my experience.)
"How do Chinese people celebrate the New Year?" accepted May 2019. Hopefully, it resolves some issues for folks.
I think Duo is "trying" to get A decent initial translation and expand based on comments. I've had a lot of issues with translations being transliterations that were too inflexible or translations that ignored cases where transliterations actually parsed better in English than the very different "correct" answer of similar meaning, but I have to give Duo credit for adopting many suggested additional translations to broaden the accepted English answer set.
庆祝 is to celebrate 过 is to spend time
I get that it doesn't feel right but to say celebrate is just an incorrect translation
ok I put Year's, because that's actually correct and it said I was wrong because I used the apostrophe. It's NOT MULTIPLE YEARS.
I can see why this has taken years to implement. Go back to Alph ya'll. "How do Chinese celebrate New Years? 翻译哪儿不对劲儿？？？天啊我快要把笔记本扔到窗户外！
... the problem is that "zhong guo ren" means people in china not the chinese there are also chinese in other countries like malaysia and taiwan "hua ren" means the chinese. so it should be "华人怎么过新年"
I take your point, but there are a number of counterpoints. Here are just a few:
- "华人" is clearer in reference to people of Chinese descent in general, but "中国人" is open to interpretation, as is "the Chinese". In English, "the Chinese" can refer politically to the country of China, or it can refer to citizens of China living anywhere in the world, or it can refer to people of Chinese descent that operate mostly in their native language and culture regardless of whether they're Chinese citizens, depending on the context.
- Even when arguing for a limited meaning, many commenters include people from places like Malaysia and Taiwan in the term "中國人". And among the Taiwanese Chinese people that I know, I don't know any that don't consider themselves to be 中國人. (Taiwan is a special case politically, but this also applies to people in other countries. So where do we draw the line?)
- This question doesn't specify that it's not talking about Chinese citizens.
- "People in China" (your term) and "Chinese citizens" are not synonymous expressions. There are many foreigners in China at all times.
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Context is often important in considering these sorts of questions.
Zhong guo ren means both the Chinese and people in China. Hua ren is a little more casual.
Bad.We don't spend we celebrate.But for Spring Fesival Vacation it could use spend.
"Spend" is fine. It's more general and can refer to more than just the celebration aspect. It can refer to how the time is passed in general, e.g. with family and friends.
How do Chinese people spend New Year's? I do not understand, Is this English?
Yes, it's correct English. What's your specific problem with it?
There is only one problem: while accepting correct American translations, the Duolingo team often marks the other ones as "incorrect" So we kindly ask to accept the other translatons too
After all we a learning (Mandarin) Chinese here, not American English Nothing personal:)
What variety of English have you learned, and how do you think it's said in that variety?
Reported on February 2, 2019: "How do Chinese people observe the New Year?"
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I wrote "how do chinese people celebrate a new year" and got marked wrong, though it is correct.
No, "Chinese people" is plural so you need "do", not "does".
Also, Duolingo seems to require "the new year" or "New Year's" (which is what North Americans would tend to say), and not simply "new year".
Duo accepted both: 新年中国人怎么过？ And 中国人怎么过新年?
Anyone got tips on how to choose the position of the time/event here?
The first one is a topic-comment sentence: "(As for) New Year's, how do Chinese people spend (it)?"
The second one is the regular subject-verb-object order more familiar to English speakers: "How do Chinese people spend New Year's?"
(English puts "how" in a different place in either case.)
I think you'd have to be given "春节" as your prompt for that, rather than "新年".
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Your insistence on using “New Year’s” shows your translator’s ignorance. Just say,”How do Chinese people celebrate New Year.”
Maybe "celebrate the New Year", but "celebrate New Year" doesn't sound like good English, at least in North America.
However, according to roman2095's comment above, perhaps it's acceptable in Australia. What regional variety of English do you speak?
There's nothing about a party in the English sentence. The question is essentially asking how people spend their time to celebrate the arrival of a new year. It could be having a party, staying home with family, taking time off work, making and/or eating special food, etc.
"How do Chinese spend New Year" should also be accepted. It's the same as "How do Americans spend New Year". Americans = 美国人 Chinese = 中国人
It's not natural to say "American people" or "Chinese people", or if you did, you would be indicating ethnicity not nationality (i.e. wouldn't have 中国）
It is natural to say Chinese people. It is not as typical to say American people because 'americans' is shorter, however the same form can't be applied to Chinese people. Even then, to say American people is not abnormal.
Exactly- 'Americans' works in plural, but you can' really say 'Chineses'., can you So you either have to use 'Chinese people' or 'the Chinese' (British English).
"How do Chinese celebrateS new year" Should also be accepted. All I did wrong was by adding as S to the word "celebrate" nothing affect the meaning of the sentence!
It's wrong. With "do", you need the bare infinitive, "celebrate". As it's a clear mistake, you can't expect Duo to accept it.
Also it's natural to say "Chinese people" or "the Chinese" rather than just "Chinese".
中国人 does not always have to mean only Chinese but also people in China, there are millions of non china Chinese around the world and non china Chinese nations. So the answer should reflect that instead of "How do Chinese people..."
I am Chinese. 中国人 literally means China like hello??? Its not wrong to say how do china people celebrate new year
"China people" sounds weird in English. It's not how native speakers say it.