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- "我跟朋友在周末见面的时候，会喝啤酒。"
"我跟朋友在周末见面的时候，会喝啤酒。"
Translation:When my friends and I meet up on weekends, we drink beer.
98 Comments
Unfortunately, they want "friends" (plural), "weekends" (plural), and "beers" (plural) and "weekends" can't be preceded by the article "the".
I first typed it all in the singular and my answer was rejected. I then typed it all in the plural and my answer was rejected for "the", but it took me a moment to realize what was wrong since "the" wasn't underlined.
I guess "weekends" is more technically correct English when I think about it, but "the weekends" is how I would normally say this.
Ditto for the plurals sans "friends"; this definitely involves multiple "weekends" and by inference multiple "beers" though it seems unnatural to say it that way.
You can't say "the weekends" without a specific context. For example, "the weekends in March". If you're talking generally about the weekend, then you can say "the weekend". Usually you can also say "weekends", but not always.
In fact these expressions seem to be used rather fluidly. I'd be more inclined to say that there's no absolute rule; rather, context will be your guide. If you look at various forums addressing these questions, you'll see that there are a number of contradictory opinions.
Here are a couple of dictionary entries that don't agree with you.
- https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/weekend
- http://learnersdictionary.com/qa/Over-the-weekend-on-the-weekend-at-the-weekend
Personally I'd probably use "weekends" or "the weekend" for the general case, but I think circumstantial context, or a word such as "usually" or "often", can tip the meaning of "the weekends" toward the general.
I can't emphasize enough: this is a Chinese, not an English course. All translations into English that reflect the Chinese meaning should be accepted!
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These discussions help us identify which of the English translations are what the Chinese is actually trying to say. Since we're not Chinese speakers yet we don't know this when the English seems a bit off and can be fixed various ways with various different nuances.
We know from experience in these discussion pages that both the English and the Chinese have been full of errors. (Getting better all the time though.)
I guess is because in Chinese the “会" can implies the possibility that something can/will happens, for instance to be able to drink on weekends. Also implies that an action will occurs.
I am Chinese and i can write the same sentence in many different ways. Duolingo is misleading. Anyways, I will drink beer when i meet with my friend this weekend.
@Junmig: and you don't normally do that - is the impression I get. You will drink beer only on "this" weekend. Right?
In the US at least, we don't refer to drinking beer with 'beer' in the plural. "we drink beers" sounds extremely unnatural.
So much of the English in this course is not idiomatic/would never be spoken by a native English speaker.
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It's twenty years since I drank beer in the US but I've drunk beers in other English speaking countries and/or with other native English speakers regularly and we say beers all the time to refer to glasses or bottles of beer.
The mistakes here are so stupid. "when I meet with friends on the weekends, we drink beer"
Yes. The Chinese sentence does not specify the number of friends.
Why is everything so alcoholic? I've gotten at least 15 beer or wine questions so far.
"When I see my friends this weekend, we will drink beer." is the most natural, vernacular English translation. 会 here is almost certainly indicative of a future tense that applies to the whole sentence.
"Meet - would drink" in the model answer. Tenses don't match. Either Met-would drink Or meet-drink
Excuse my Britishness but "When my friends and I meet at the weekend we drink beer" is far more natural. "We drink beers" sounds really odd.
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If it were "we drink a few beers" it would sound more natural. It's only a bit unnatural though in the big scheme of off-sounding English across Duolingo courses.
Is it :
a future plan " when we meet, we'll (会) be drinking ",
Or is it a casual habit " every time we meet, we usually drink"
I believe if 会 is used, then it must be the former one that's intended only.
Am I right ?
I'll caveat this comment by stating that I'm not a native Chinese speaker, but in my understanding and experience, "会" can also express a sort of generalized predilection or conditionality (and here, the beer-drinking is a tendency conditional on the getting together).
To analogize with English, in English it's possible to say, for example, "when we get together, we'll usually have a few beers". This is pretty informal, but it's also pretty common.
Also, in some regional variations of Mandarin "会" is almost just a filler, not unlike "很". In this usage, more specifically, it's employed as an auxiliary to ask about or state the presence or absence of some condition, but it doesn't impart any extra meaning over the version of the sentence without it. Here's an example:
That sounds right to me, I have not checked the link but it is true that it is sometimes used as a sort of filler, I think Mandarin has quite a few of those, which is one reason why it is both challenging to explain and to learn. To answer the earlier question it can really a bit of both, but more of the latter, it could mean either as well, since there is no context.
It is wrong in English to use ongoing present 'when we meet' with past habitual 'we would' when it means 'used to do'.
Given the dog's breakfast that this course remains, I'm absolutely stunned that I got through this question on the first try.
"When I meet with my friends on the weekend we drink beer."
Thanks to everyone who reported alternative correct answers.
Edit: It's much better a year later.
Over a year has gone by and they are not fixing the course. I'm trying to get through to the final module (because the sample Chinese sentences are useful), but then I am gone.
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It is correct to say "we drink water", "we drink coffee". So it should be correct to say "we drink beer", singular!
Water, beer, coffee and egg can all be treated as uncountable nouns, depending on the context.
Great. Give me seven "egg". I need them if I drink more than five "beer". Hehehe
In this case, since the nouns are preceded by numbers, they must be treated as countable nouns.
Wow, so instead of seven "eggs", make it seven "waters" then. I didn't know this trick of converting uncountable nouns to countable nouns so easily. Thanks :-)
P.S. I hope this little jest of mine will demonstrate the true difference between the countable nature of water and beer.
make it seven "waters" then.
countable nature of water
Except that water doesn't have any countable nature. Not all nouns can be both countable in some situations and uncountable in others.
Anyways, I'm going to leave it at this because others that have commented in this thread will receive email notifications every time someone posts a new comment. But relating back to the sentence at the top, I guess "beers" isn't really wrong but it's just not as natural as "beer".
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For some reason, it's correcting to "When I meet my friends at the weekend, we would drink beer." which is just plain wrong. Reported 2nd October 2018.
I don't always drink beer with my friends on weekends, but when I do, I prefer Dos Equis.
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I don't alway catch viruses from my friends on weekends, but when I do, I prefer anything other than Corona.
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'would drink' is wrong here, because 'meet' is in the present tense while 'would' represents a habitual action. But habitual action in the present is a contradiction in terms. It will work if you change 'meet' to the past: "When my friends and I met on weekends, we would drink beer.'
agree. The use of "would" in the English translation is unnatural and ungrammatical.
Got marked wrong for putting "on the weekends" instead of "on weekends"?!
Took me about 10 times to memorise the English for this.... Because the English MAKES NO SENSE
Why is this wrong? "When I meet up with my friends on the weekends, we drink beer." I mean I'm essentially saying the same thing with a slightly different word order (with an added "the")
I and my friends should be accepted the same way as my friends and I. (Not very polite, but factual correct.)
Yet another sentence that could be translated in a hundred different ways but for which they have only provided about two possibilities. It's all very fine getting us to 'make is smarter' but they could at least meet us halfway and do the obvious ones.
"Drink beers" seems unnatural to me. "Drink beer" seems better. And as for "on weekends" as a BE speaker I much prefer "at the weekend."
No reason. It can be countable or uncountable, and the uncountable form seems quite natural here.
"When my friends and I meet up on weekends, we would drink beer" ...?
"Meet up", as opposed to "meet", is okay, but the verb tense pairing is wrong. You need "met up", or you need to drop the "would". (Substituting "will" for "would" would make it okay too.)
"When we meet on weekends, my friends an i drink beer" is correct, but not accepted. Please fix.
Did DL just change WOULD to WILL after I trained myself to answer with WOULD?!
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Don't memorize. It's only useful for passing Duoling. Learn. It's useful for talking to Chinese people.
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Think of it as the equivalent of "on" or "at" in "on weekends" or "at the weekend". I've only seen it used for location until now, but apparently it can also be used for time in at least some situations.
How common is the verb to "meet up" as it is used here? I heard Chinese people using it regularly (Chinglish?), but practically never heard a native speaker of English using it.
I can't say exactly how common it is, but it's perfectly normal and natural English, at least in North America. In fact, it's common enough that there's an internet-based service company called Meetup that facilitates groups of people getting together.
That said, "get together" is also a common phrase. I'm not sure if there's a closer Chinese equivalent to this, but perhaps "小聚", "聚聚", or "聚会", depending on the context.
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I'm a native English speaker and I use both all the time. It's hard to say when I use which but perhaps I might use "meet up" a bit more if it's a planned but casual meeting with a group of people.
I don't see why not. However, if you want to make it clearly singular you can say "一个朋友". In fact you can even say "我的一个朋友", "a friend of mine".
"At" is accepted, but some variations of this sentence may still need to be reported.
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Yes, I'm a Uk native English speaker and I would always say 'at the weekend'. On the weekend sounds American to my ears. I got everything else right but 'at the weekend' was not accepted - DL only wants 'on the weekend'. Grr
"At the weekend" has been accepted for a while, but that doesn't mean that all correct variations of the sentence are in the database. Report any that aren't.
You'll notice many British English speakers on this page mentioning "at the weekend" as their preferred usage.
See my friends. Again, only the Chinese course has these ridiculously narrow English answers that aren't even very colloquial.
They aren't "narrow", they are grammatically wrong. But no-one at Duolingo cares, so why should we?
This has to be the oddest sentence I've encountered yet. You can do it Duo! I believe on you!
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Well you just wait. This isn't even in the top 100 oddest Duolingo sentences for me! (-:
Something wrong when we are expected to parrot your translation. This gives us no chance to think for ourselves and come up with our own, often better, translations.
Yes, you should please start your own Chinese teaching app. I'm sure it will be better than Duo and you'll do well. :-)
Well, this question has a lot of rightfully-deserved hate. Same complaints. Reported.
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In English language till now I habe mot heard "meet up" meet up is not used in normal English
The mistakes you make in your comments suggest that you're not a native English speaker, and you don't have native-level English. This isn't a criticism in itself, and I applaud your effort, but it does make me wonder why you haven't phrased your comment as a question instead of a statement.
You're wrong here. "Meet up" is normal English, and very common.
What's the issue? Please be more specific.
If a translation you entered was marked wrong, but you believe should have accepted it, please report it.
