"Many children are short."
Translation:Viele Kinder sind klein.
32 Comments
Not when you talk about people. People are "klein".
Generally, of course, short = kurz.
I really wish the app alone would explain this kind of stuff. I always have to go and look it up on Google or something.
Annoyingly the web interface for Duo does have hints and tips for every lesson but for some bizarre reason these are unavailable in the app.
Could refer to "der Vortrag" (the lecture), "der Schnürsenkel" (the shoe lace), "der Zeitraum" (the time span), "der Tunnel" (the tunnel), ...
Unfortunately Google translator also translates "Many children are short" as "Viele Kinder sind kurz" :(
Google translator gets lots of things wrong in regards to English to German, so I won't use it any more. One day I was chatting to some Germans using it and it translated what they told me to be the opposite of what they actually said.
Duolingo translated 'many' as 'einige' - but on this page as 'viele'. What is happening here?
I typed "Manche Kinder sind klein" and it gave "Einige Kinder sind klein" as the correct answer. Although, it may not count viele as incorrect.
Could you explain your reasoning here:
"Because there's nothing in front of it, so it takes strong inflection."
“Kurz” is short in terms of length, the opposite of ”lang”. When speaking of of a person's height you use “groß” and “klein”.
"tief" = "deep", it's not used for people. Holes in the ground are "tief".
alle kinder sind klein./ by definition alle erwachsene sind gross/by definition etwas : grosse kinder /kleine kinder viele menschen sind /gross/alt/schon/klein etwas menschen sind /gross/alt/schon/klein What is correct?
short = kurz; small/little = klein; I think the 'correct' answer is wrong
Please read my comment above.
To reiterate:
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‘kurz’ is ‘short’ as opposed to long; it is a measure of length, never height.
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‘klein’ means small/little, but also short when referring to height, and ‘groß’ is the opposite in both senses: it means both big/large and tall.
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So how would you say a child is SMALL, rather than SHORT, which imply two different things in English.
Both are "klein" in German.
If you tell me that "sie hat ein kleines Kind", I'll assume you're referring to the child's age (maybe 1-6 years old?).
If you tell me that a child is "klein", it depends on context. I might imagine the child as "young" or as "short". "Sein Kind ist noch klein" = his child is young / only a few years old; "Das Kind dort ist klein" = the child over there is short; "Er ist zu klein für die Achterbahn" = probably he's too short to ride on the rollercoaster; "Er ist zu klein für diesen Film" = he's too young to watch this movie.
The word "klein" doesn't give me any mental image of the child's weight / "width". Same goes for adults: a "klein" adult is short, a "groß" adult is tall, not saying anything about their weight either way.
If you want to tell me that a child is "tiny all over" (frail-looking), I can't think of an actual word for that, outside local dialects with funny words.
But what does "hoch" mean? Tall, no? So for a tall person we can use both "gross"" and "hoch" ?
Be careful not to equate translation with meaning: yes, “hoch” can often be translated as “tall” (or, more commonly, “high”), but it is used with that meaning only with inanimate things. When talking about people, “tall” translates to “groß”.
