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- "你知道新校长是谁吗？"
"你知道新校长是谁吗？"
Translation:Do you know who the new principal is?
22 Comments
"do you know who the new headmaster is" was rejected but should be accepted
I think headteacher should be accepted. I don't think headmaster should be as I cannot see any indication of gender (unless I have missed it).
As Duolingo is an American company, I wouldn't expect alternate British English words like "headmaster" to be accepted. It might be nice, but there are many forms of English that would then have to be accounted for.
Tried "Do you know who's the new principal?" but it was rejected. Shouldn't it be correct?
662
In a subordinate clause the verb follows the subjects. The question inversion is in the first part of the sentence (do you know).
- 34
Why is “吗” required here? “谁” is a question word so I thought it would be redundant to include 吗.
@Dominic - "College Principal", "Head instructor", "Teacher-in-chief", "Prime teacher"..... more ways of saying
Do you know who the new principle is? Is already correct! Because you can't make 2 questions in the same sentence. Which means the word "Do you know" already represent the question sentence. That's why you must say "the new principle is" as a positive sentence. This is the grammar.
Stuck in an error loop here. The app rejects their own suggested answer: "Do you know who the new school pricipal is"
(This is the version where you choose English words from a list.)
Reported 11/28/2017
IMO, it should not (it is wrong in English), but it is accepted (I have tried it by mistake).
谁 is a question word. Having 吗 at the end is completely incorrect. Should be 你知道新的校长是谁？ or 你知道谁是新的校长？
- 913
Actually, it's not incorrect, because the question is not 谁. The question is "Do you know..." and 谁 is part of the object sentence of what the person knows (or doesn't know). So the fact that there's a question word in that sub-phrase is irrelevant. 你知道...吗 is correct.
I disagree! It is a yes/no question (whether you know or not who the new principal is) which is indicated with 吗 at the end! 谁 in this case is not constructing a direct question, it's indicating an unknown person! The sentence is correct as it is: 你知道新教长是谁吗？ or it could also be: 你知不知道新教长是谁？
Hi i am a chinese native speaker. It is correct that 谁 is a question word. However, native speakers usually end a off a question with the word 吗. Just like how in english you will raise your pitch at the end of a question. 吗 has no meaning or definition. I hope this helps!
- 713
Without 吗 at the end, would it mean "You know who is the new principal!"? It might be that 谁 is the question word of the "inner" sentence (X) but there is an "outer" sentence (你知道 X 吗？).
