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- "你吃过油条吗？"
"你吃过油条吗？"
Translation:Have you eaten a deep-fried dough stick before?
84 Comments
760
I'm marked wrong for this, I kid you not:
"Have you eaten deep fried dough stick before?"
My crime?
No hyphen between 'deep' and 'fried'.
There is also no need in English to say 'a' deep fried....
This course just gets more and more tedious and silly as you progress. In my English speaking country, we never put a hyphen in 'deep fried'.
The use of the hyphen is correct. It is written as "deep-fried" to indicate that the "deep" applies to the adjective "fried" and not to the following noun. When you have a string of adjectives before a noun they all refer to the noun, so using the hyphen ensures that the "deep" does not apply to the dough sticks.
- 760
Not true, hyphens can be used with two words that are becoming one word through frequent and popular use. You'll therefore see many variations used in English all over the world. It starts with dough stick, then dough-stick, and it will probably end as doughstick one day.
There are different uses for hyphens. One is as you describe it, and one is as roman2095 describes it. You were marked wrong for missing the latter kind, which is a general convention (read: rule) and not dependent on usage over time. It's generalizable to any compound adjective that comes before the noun it describes.
https://grammar.collinsdictionary.com/easy-learning/the-hyphen
A hyphen is used to join two or more words that together form an adjective, where this adjective is used before the noun it describes.
an up-to-date account
a last-minute rush
a six-year-old boy
Arguably your "mistake" should be accepted as a typo, but in a sense you typed two words when you should have typed one.
- 32
"Have you eaten deep fried dough sticks before?" Still marked wrong as of 2019-04-15. Reported.
- 760
And still no change after two years, it drives you nutz. The answers are so ridiculously confined with any question concerning dough-sticks in this lesson. Very bad education as far as I am concerned. Pain for no gain.
Three main things: Problems with plurals verses singular when Chinese does not differentiate either. Problems with having to say "a dough stick" when you could just refer to it as 'dough stick'. Ie: "I have not eaten dough-stick before". Perfectly OK in English, you don't need the 'a'. Problems with the silly hyphen used with dough-stick. If it is not there they mark you wrong. Why be so pedantic? The English grammar used in this course by Duo is not perfect anyway, it is often wrong.
All pointless punishment that turns you off the course for no reason at all.
I have finished this course now, but still come back to practice. These sorts of things still make me mad, especially when they do nothing about it for years on end.
"Dough stick" on its own without "a" does sound a little weird, though. It's almost like asking if someone has ever eaten "banana" or "orange".
In any event, the Chinese course is actually a lot better than it was when it came out of beta. Keep reporting options, but just realize that not all of them will be added.
Normally, when I do translation, I just call it a youtiao. Deep-fried dough stick is also acceptable, but it doesn't truly convey what the food item is.
Unfortunately, these are all rejected:
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"Have you eaten youtiao before?"
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"Have you eaten a youtiao before?"
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"Have you ever eaten youtiao before?"
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"Have you ever eaten a youtiao before?"
- 175
Almost. Only if it also has "sticks" instead of "stick". On the other hand, if the English uses "youtiao" then that sounds wrong in the plural but sounds right with or without "a".
Either "eaten a stick" or "eaten sticks" would be OK, but "eaten stick" is grammatically incorrect.
- 1685
I don't think so. Consider: "have you ever had elephant ear?" Or "Have you ever had doughnut?" It implies "even a bite of" instead of the whole elephant ear or doughnut, but it's perfectly correct in reference to the substances known as "elephant ear" and "doughnut" respectively. (Trying to keep my examples to other forms of deep fried dough) ;)
"Have you eaten deep-fried dough sticks before?" (with "sticks") is rejected right now while "youtiao" is rejected in every combination I've come up with, so it seems that the article "a" is necessary.
These are 'fritters' in America, for anyone who wasn't aware. Also known as a 'Chinese fritter', but if you are referring to it, it should be pronounced 'You2Tiao2', just like you say 'sushi' when referring to the Japanese cuisine.
This is why Youtiao should probably be accepted, as well as the outrageous, 'deep fried dough stick' translation. It doesn't even say that in You2Tiao2. It literally says oil strips. To deep fry is 炸 or to 油炸.
Just another kink that will be worked out as the Beta grows up to be big and strong. eyeroll
- 175
It's also pretty close to an unsweetened churro actually. But the US is the only non-Spanish-speaking country where I regularly saw churros. I've had even more similar things in Eastern Europe but those didn't have a standard English name either.
Most of us doing this course are probably in China, have been to China, are going to China, or are interested in Chinese culture and food, and so we're used to using the Chinese names for Chinese foods that are not common in our home cultures.
On the other hand, in things like phrasebooks and travel guides, "deep fried dough stick" is the English translation commonly used for youtiao. I think it should accept both.
- 175
过 can be translated into English in various ways including "Have you ever X" and "Have you X before". Just using "have" on its own in English is more used for the past perfect tense than for asking whether somebody has experienced something.
Basically, you can't translate between Chinese and English on a 1-to-1 word-for-word basis.
How can I connote the past perfect without an intention to ask about "before " ?
Ex : Have you eaten the dish i prepared for you ? How
吃過 is eaten before or eaten already. It is rearranged in the English version for grammar.
- 932
However, in English, when you ask if something has "ever occured" the past is implied in the words "have…ever". Therefore, 'before' is redundant and is often omitted. "Have you ever eaten a deep fried dough stick?" is sufficiant and should be accepted
I've always either called them youtiao or chinese doughnuts. Never heard of "deep-fried dough stick"
I've either called them youtiao or Chinese donuts. "Deep fried dough stick" is really awkward to say. I looked 油条 up in mandarin tools. So individually the respective characters are "oil" and "stick," with 条 as "measure word for long, thin things (i.e. ribbon, river, etc.); a strip; item; article."
I guess that's where the course editors are getting this from. I'd really like to hear their thinking on this.
I kinda want to hunt down whoever was responsible for this lesson's translations and beat them senseless with a deep fried dough stick.
- 874
Why in the world is "deep" necessary if you have "fried dough sticks"?!? This particular exercise has gone unchecked long enough and it's irritating. You'd think with all of these comments Duolingo would actually fix it
- 451
"Have you eaten a deep-fried dough stick?" (Without "before" should also be accepted.
I agree. Also "Have you ever eaten a deep fried dough stick?" even missing the hyphen seems acceptable to me.
- 1685
I think so too. In English this can mean "today" or "ever before" depending on context and tone.
- 175
I would say so, but one key difference is that youtiao are never sweet or sugar-sprinkled whereas churros are always sprinkled in sugar. At least in my experience in China and Mexico.
- 175
It's very inconsistent that this can get marked wrong just for omitting the hyphen where everywhere else on Duolingo all punctuation is overlooked when deciding if an answer is correct or not.
The translation is bad because it makes it far less specific. I could truthfully say I've had a deep fried dough stick before if I've eaten a churro. The correct translation should be youtiao, just like dim sum is used in other exercises.
Thanks to Duolingo I never ever even want to hear about deep fried dough sticks again!
If you're going to require "baijiu" as the English instead of "chinese vodka", you should accept "youtiao" as the english instead of "deep fried dough stick"....who says that? At least accept "fried dough stick"
Why can't i say chinese doughnuts instead of deep fried dough sticks?
I doubt it, considering that the displayed answer has no hyphen in that position.
That's what it says on my package of you tiao anyway. "Chinese donut"
I'm sorry, but who in the world would naturally say "I had deep-fried dough sticks for breakfast today. How about you?"
- 175
The meaning is the same, whether you say 'deep-fried dough stick' or 'deep-fried dough sticks'.
- 1666
Can abybody explain me where in this sentence "past perfect" or past time at least. Also please point me to the word "before". This theme is too voluntaristic in translation to English. I hate it !
I think it is because the character 过 (guo) after 吃 is an experienced action marker. This places the action in the past and you can insert "before" or "ever" in the appropriate place to indicate because you are asking if the person has ever had this experience in the past.
I think they accept either "ever" or "before" so it might be that they do not like you using both. Obviously your sentence should be be marked correct. It is also possible that you were marked wrong because you did not use a hyphen in "deep-fried". In fact I think this is probably the reason as it results in two words instead of one for "deep-fried".
I notice if I type a certain word as two instead of one, Duo still lets me pass, but tells me that I have an extra space. Maybe I should have written back then what I was being corrected to.
Oh, I will never remember this four-words-name en English :-(
Am I right that in "Gourmet 1" the questions have the lowest mark?))
Except they're not churros. It's a different dough, and they're not covered in sugar. They're savory rather than sweet.
"Youtiao" is accepted. Why not use that? It's no different from borrowing the word "churro".
isn't a deep-fried dough stick just fried dough?? I don't know why that would be wrong
