"她的英语水平很不错。"
Translation:Her English skills are not bad.
43 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
1606
"Her English skills are not bad" is better. I'm still not sure it's a sentence a native speaker would say offhandedly, but at least it's grammatically correct. Which the sentence with the singular "skill" isn't.
- 1885
To me, a US English native speaker and former ESL and foreign language teacher, 'Her English skills are not bad' is definitely something I would say. Like you, I would not use 'skill' here in the singular, although I might use 'level' or 'proficiency.'
It should be "Her english is not bad". Duolingo should change this as people might learn this wrong.
I know it's hard to believe for some people, but this is a Chinese course not an English course. The translation should reflect the complete meaning of the Chinese sentence, no matter if native English speakers think it's "bad English".
Agreed. Even though it literally means "not bad", 不错 usually means something like: " quite good".
I tried "her English level isn't bad". It still didn't accept 水平 as "level"
Her English is not bad was rejected... Seems more idiomatic in English.
"Her English skill is not bad."
Ironically, whoever came up with that translation clearly doesn't speak very good English. In English, one would just say "Her English is not bad."
I think you mean to say the person does not speak English very well ;D
"Speak (very) good English" is actually bad English.
We would say: 1. Her English skills are not bad. 2. Her English is not bad. 3. Her level of English is not bad.
But we would never say "Her English skill is not bad."
- 43
I put in no.1 but it was rejected. It's really frustrating! We simply need to keep reporting them!
But that is exactly what is in the question! Then how is the correct translation "not bad" instead of "really not bad" or "not bad at all"? Is it possible to leave out the 很?
- 1885
Using 很 with 不错 is common. But I don't you can do this with any old adjective / stative verb in either language. This is a rather special kind of expression, where 不错 is being used as a surrogate for '好/good,' in a way that is similar to our use of 'not bad' to mean 'good.' Although we can't add emphasis to this in English with very ('very not bad' sounds pretty strange), we can say 'not bad at all,' or perhaps 'really not bad.' I think the bigger constraint, however, is that most languages I know of, including English and Chinese, don't generally allow the negation of most properties to be routinely interpreted as an assertion of their opposite. For example, I don't take 'that's not big at all' to be the equivalent of 'that's really small.'
As of October 2021, Duolingo translates 水平 into skills and/or proficiency, sometimes accepting either but, at least here, accepts only skills. I reported it.
- 70
Actually, the 平 in 水平 is for “calm" or "level". Apple = 苹果 it is from a tree so you have the 草字头 as the radical.
- 584
"Her English is pretty good" is a more natural translation. "Skill" is redundant and not necessary. Since Chinese says "very not bad", translating as "not bad" doesn't capture the thought being expressed. If we were to provide a slightly more literal translation, I feel "her English skills are..." as expressed by previous commenters should replace current standard answer.
- 1259
Reported that "her english skills are not bad at all" should be accepted. The "at all" is to bring in the sense of 很. It probably makes more sense to UK / Australian ears than American.
“Skills” is plural, so “is” is incorrect, it should be “her English skills are not bad.” I would typically omit “skills are,” though, and in say “her English is not bad” instead.
I appreciate these discussions but It seems to me that, Duolingo’s ability to respond to reports of errors and inconsistencies would be limited if left only to volunteers. Monitoring reports would be more efficient than monitoring discussions so I encourage all to report problems.I wonder if paying for Duolingo Plus (if within one’s ability to pay) would improve courses.