"我的刷牙习惯是每天三次。"
Translation:My habit is to brush my teeth three times a day.
101 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
A habit is some thing or act which one does consistently. Therefore, "I ALWAYS brush my teeth 3 times a day." should be accepted.
1624
I have a habit of brushing my teeth three times a day.
I make it a habit to brush my teeth three times a day.
Starting off a sentence with "my habit is" sounds unnatural or awkward for this phrase. When you are talking about 1 habit it is more natural to say "a habit." To me "my habit is" only seems natural when used in a compound sentence.
"My habit is to drink coffee, then go running."
"My morning habit is to have tea and then do yoga."
"In the evening, my habit is to brush my teeth before bed."
Rather, "my tooth-brushing habit..." (or perhaps even "my teeth-brushing habit..."). The Chinese is specific to teeth, and people also brush their hair, their cats, etc.
(It's also awkward to use the phrasing "My tooth-brushing habit is three times daily". "My habit is to brush my teeth three times daily" is a better structure. It answers the question "What is my habit", which makes more sense than "How often is my habit".)
A note for the Chinese team:
Duo currently proposes "I am used to brush my teeth three times a day".
That's not correct English. In the phrase "be used to", the "to" is prepositional, not infinitival, and what follows it should be a gerund.
The correct sentence is "I am used to brushing my teeth three times a day".
(This is different from "I used to brush my teeth three times a day", which refers to something that occurred in the past. In that case the verb "be" is not included, and the verb following "used" is in the infinitive.)
Edit: Apparently as of 2021-06-23 (three years later) "used to brush" is correctly marked wrong.
866
I would say that's literally correct but doesn't sound that natural English to me. But this isn't an English test (-:
866
I think it's literally correct but sounds more natural with "per day", "each day" or "daily".
866
Well we're here to help them get the beta Chinese course into shape so let's submit all the suggestions and their team will get through them with time.
It would be an interesting teaching approach to focus on the Chinese syntax instead of trying to teach us English. That would be be a novel and interesting! I focus a lot on the Chinese syntax as that is critical to me getting to grips with the language. That feeds my ability to convey what i mean. I had the same experience in a face-to-face class snd once we got over that the learning experience improved on both sides - they stop wasting time trying to teach me a language i've mastered (i'm an academic) and focus on constrcting sentences in Chinese. I like your view on the usefulness of the Chinese syntax! That could be do interesting! I think Mandarin may be more susceptible to be taught in this way as, so far, it seems more 'regular' than having vast areas of 'irregular' components.
What I was given as the correct answer: "I'm used to brush my teeth three times a day." is not English. At least it's not normal native English. We would never put it like that. We would say it like it is on this discussion answer: "I brush my teeth three times a day." And we don't need to mention that it is our habit. That's understood.
866
True but the Chinese version is about the habit, not just the brushing or the number of times. Good natural ways to convey that in English are "I'm in the habit of ...", "I normally ...", "I usually ...", "I always ...", etc.
It is insanely frustrating that these translations are sometimes more literal to the Chinese and sometimes more idiomatic English, sometimes a combination of the two, and you have to memorize exactly the word order and oddities of each one in order to pass lessons and tests. I have quit and rejoined a few times now, and I realize it's always right around this lesson, the translations for which are terrible. (Nine in the mornings? No one says that.)
This comment was written when the correct translation was set to be "My teeth brushing habit is three times a day."
I do not agree with this translation. It might be (don't quote me on this, I am not entirely sure) grammatically correct, but it is an illogical sentence. The commonly accepted way to express this idea in English is to say that one's habit is brushing teeth three times a day. In most cases, phrases such as "three times a day" are used similarly to adverbs and are thus not used to describe nouns such as a "teeth brushing habit" (or at least, where I am from in the United States).
I'll be honest, throughout the entire chinese course up till now, this sentence is the biggest trash. The english DOES NOT correspond to the chinese. Chinese to english would be "My teeth brushing habit is to(always/) do it three times/thrice (/every) a day/daily" OR the chinese from this english "我习惯(是)每天三次刷牙“
I don't see the English influence here. The closer the English gets to the Chinese structure, the more stilted it sounds, and if it goes too far in that direction, it's no longer correct.
But I'm curious: if you think "我的刷牙习惯是每天三次" sounds very "China", why are you saying it's wrong?
Are there any mainlanders that can weigh in?
1143
In the dental literature the term is 'tooth brushing' not 'teeth brushing'! Same as in 'coffee making' not 'coffees making', 'bread making' not 'breads making', 'house cleaning' not 'houses cleaning' etc
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We don't typically say "My habit to [verb] is...". We say "My habit is to [verb]".
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You need a sentence that says what your habit is: [My habit] is [to brush my teeth three times a day].
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"Is" connects two equal things: (1) my habit; and (2) to brush my teeth three times a day. You could also switch them around: To brush my teeth three times a day is my habit.
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For this particular sentence, we want to answer the question "what", i.e. "what is my habit" or "my habit is what". The answer works best if it's a noun phrase, which "to brush my teeth" fulfills. Technically "three times a day" answers the question "when" or "how often", and it doesn't really make sense to say "My habit is three times a day" unless we understand "to brush my teeth" to be implied after "is". It certainly doesn't make much sense to ask the question "how often is your habit" or "when is your habit".
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The English is a bit different from the Chinese. The Chinese effectively says "My tooth-brushing habit is three times a day". That's not an impossible way to phrase it in English, but, for the reasons I give in point 4 above, it doesn't sound as good in English. It's understandable but lazy. (That said, Duo's English sentence isn't the most natural-sounding itself, though it's grammatically correct.)
I can certainly see why this original commenter chose to be deactivated. It's been a long time 30 or 40 lesson sets since I've seen sentences as unflexible and really non-american English when you get down to it as these. I've thrown away two sets of hearts on the last two lessons. Oh well easy come easy go, more practice more hearts, and more experience points if you are into the competition. And it's free. If only their English was a little freer.再见 deactivated Duolingo朋友!
One of the fossilized, flawed sentences which harken back to when the Chinese tree here on Duolingo was simply unbearable.
Well, it's all a matter of where to draw the line between a correct translation and an incorrect one, but technically you've translated "每天刷三次牙是我的惯是". Also, in English we would usually say "brushing my teeth", not simply "brushing teeth". Otherwise it sounds as if you're brushing the teeth of unknown others.
626
The difficulty always seems to be getting a translation which is sufficiently literal to satisfy their stored answers and reproduces the key phrases while at the same time making the English not sound too stilted. Often to achieve this I find i just have to memorise their answer rather than use more satisfactory English.
1225
When you understand everything, but you should guess how Duo formulated the sentence...
You'd need "brushing my teeth", because otherwise it sounds like random people's teeth.
Also, it's a little awkward to use the phrasing "My X habit is three times a day". "My habit is to X three times a day" is a better structure. It answers the question "What is my habit", which makes more sense than "How often is my habit".
866
This is grammatically correct in English but the nuance would be used for a bad habit like picking one's nose rather than a daily regimen. So for the nuance they're going or the equivalent natural English would be "I'm in the habit of ..."
Thrice is a cool word, not enough people use it any more - they should definitely accept it! (-:
1746
My habit is to brush my teeth three times a day. I habitually brush my teeth three times a day. It is my habit to brush my teeth three times a day.