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- "她生病了，在房间里睡觉。"
"她生病了，在房间里睡觉。"
Translation:She's sick, she is sleeping in the room.
35 Comments
Duolingo needs to stop grading my english. I get it wrong just because I dont use an article. I said "She is sick, she is in a room sleeping" but thats not good enough english for them. In order to get one right I have to read their mind I suppose.
Its beta software (still under development). Don't be too harsh with them. But I agree. They should not judge the English in a Chinese course.
1924
I have done plenty of beta courses, and none of them is as obsessed with my English as the Chinese course.
The correct version of this sentence is: "You will see THE Chinese course is not so harsh.“ :-) [Sorry!]
- 964
With the exception of young school children, if you don't speak properly in your native language maybe learning a new one should come second ?
Well, my native language is not english, but there is no other option for me to learn chinese. So sometimes it is confusing whether i didn't understand the meaning in chinese or i made a mistake just because i'm not fluent enough in english.
They also can't anticipate all slightly wrong English translations that still convey the intended meaning. If you can't read minds, neither can they. Be understanding.
I also struggled about this point with my German course so much. But as a non-native English speaker, I think it's also quite good to learn how to use the articles properly. But I also think that Chinese course is too harsh about little mistakes we made.
I hate to tell you this, but the phrase "she is sleeping in A room" (vs. 'THE room) is not natural English and should be marked incorrect in this context. " She is sleeping in A room" (capitalization here is mine, for emphasis) is equivalent to saying that she is sleeping in 'some/any' room, and sounds comical or sarcastic. It just isn't proper English. It is theoretically possible to say 'a room' in this sentence, but it is very difficult (for me, as an educated native speaker of English) to imagine a context in which that choice would apply.
- 250
It is improbable but it is not incorrect.
You just gave a context where someone would say it.
Here's another one: There are a bunch of people at a party in a large house. The sick, sleeping person does not live there, and neither do you or the person who asks you, "Hey, where is Julie, did she go home?"
Here's yet another one: We're at a clinic with several exam rooms. It's not a busy day, and the sick person was mainly just exhausted, so we let her take a nap in the room she was examined in. You are reporting to the family member who brought her in.
Hard without context but in English its rarely right to refer to a room without some sort of descriptor.
Jieke is quite right. Here, an English speaker would say 'the room', 'her room,' 'the bedroom,' 'the back room,', etc. We would never say 'a' room without explanation unless it is a context where we do not know which specific room, for example: "I need to reserve A ROOM at the conference hotel," or I need to " get Mom A ROOM at the hotel." In those cases, we're saying [need to get] "A/ANY room, I. e. we do not know which specific room or don't care.
"Le" seems so randomly applied in answers where state change or emphasis (or both) might apply, it's kicking my backside. I don't know if there's a distinction I'm missing or if the Duo ridgid first-cut answers are just messing with my head.
It accepted 'She is sick, in the room sleeping'. My question is why 生 is used, the hover clue says it means 'give birth to'. How does that fit in?
She fell sick
She has contracted an illness
She has grown ill
She got sick
She became sick
... there are many ways to put this.
I think the 生病 is referring to contracting or incubating an illness (which to us seems unnecessarily medical and technical perhaps ...but if you look for it we have these in English too).
"生病" is a compound word, I'm not sure if the "生" part of it has to do with "health" or "coming in to existence" (it can mean both) either way it's probably best just to think of it as the compound word meaning "become ill" and not as two separate ideas.
Duolingo, please let us use any article in the listening lessons. There's simply no information to know whether it's a he or a she. =p
In three prefious sentences 'she has fallen ill' was accepted. Suddenly, in this sentence it was not accepted and corrected to 'she has gotten ill'... As far as I understand, that's not a good way to say it.
So does the 在 here indicate location or continuous action? I thought it indicates location (在房间里 - in the room) and put "she is sick she sleeps in the room" but that is marked as wrong.
It does apply to both location and action that is occuring. If 在 is before a verb it indicates an action in progress. If you are using the PC based course, the tip is in 'Weather'. So in this case it should be for location. I believe your answer was marked wrong because it is not the wording they want.
If 在 indicates location, "she is sick she sleeps in the room" should be accepted.
I could swear I've heard 房间 used to mean one's apartment—sort of like turn of the century English referring to one's "rooms." I get that it's the more direct, first sense in the dictionary meaning, but am I wrong to think this would be a valid interpretation? Beyond that, the 'correct' English answers here often remind me of Chinese-style English—the way that people back in China were taught was correct, but isn't really natural for a native speaker. I'm also getting a bit miffed with the comma splices and such in the 'correct' answers.
Hm....
- She is sick. She now sleeps in the room.
- She is sick. She is now sleeping in the room.
现在 = "now"
But just 在 is referring to the location where she is sleeping; "in the room". So "now" is incorrect here.
I wrote She's sick, she's sleeping in a room but NO. I NEED to put an AND otherwise the sentence completely changes. Duolingo can be less stricter on the sentence structure and grammar
