"Hello? Are you Doctor Li?"
Translation:喂？你是李医生吗？
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The context is provided by the question mark. "你好" isn't a question and isn't used where we would say "hello" with a question intonation in English. On the phone it's common enough to hear "喂，你好" together, but not "你好" on its own as a sort of question as we would use "Hello?".
This sentence isn't necessarily being said on the phone, however. That's a likely scenario, but it could also be used if someone were out of sight, e.g. in a room beyond the reception desk in a clinic etc.
I'm also going to add the following comment up here near the top of the page, because people keep complaining about entering the answer correctly but getting marked wrong:
DON'T USE SPACES AFTER YOUR PUNCTUATION IN CHINESE. Duo doesn't allow them, and will mark you wrong. Chinese punctuation has the correct spacing already built in.
And even if you use western-encoded punctuation or no punctuation at all, don't put a space between sentences. For better or worse, Duo won't allow it (at least as of the date on which I'm editing this comment, in August of 2020).
(I'm no longer following this page. If you find this comment helpful, please upvote it to get it closer to the top, so people don't miss it and keep asking the same questions.)
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I was going to say something similar since this one has spaces and punctuation. I found the most success leaving out both punctuation and spaces.
Yeah, but when you are strengthening skills it isn't necessarily clear which lessons they are drawing from.
Suppose you heard a strange noise around the corner and you think someone is there, would you say wèi or nihao?
Same happened to me just now... I think it's because of the different question marks ? ？
It's not exactly the question mark; it's the space afterwards. Duolingo doesn't allow spaces in Chinese, even between sentences.
As long as you don't add spaces, usually you can get away with no punctuation at all, though I'm not sure this is entirely consistent throughout the course.
Of course if you use Chinese punctuation, you automatically get the right spacing and maybe won't feel the need to add extra. With my keyboard when I'm using the Chinese input I can change the punctuation style with [Ctrl+.] ("control period"), but it may depend on your settings.
Yes, it's a correct option, but it seems that traditional characters aren't accepted for answering in Chinese.
Earlier I saw some commentary saying that they were accepted, but if that was originally true, it doesn't seem to be now. From my tests, if you try to use the traditional set, Duo will only let you pass if all the characters in the submitted sentence are the same as in the simplified set.
Sort of. This is a Mandarin Chinese course that uses simplified characters. :-)
Careful, as you've mixed two question patterns together. "V not V" can't be combined with "吗".
Wow, i forget to put 吗 at the end but my answer was accepted. So can 吗 be omitted in oral conversation ?
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It should be 喂 (wéi) not (wèi) When people call phone , i always hear that people say 喂 (wéi) , not (wèi)
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2020.6.4 Now that you mentioned it, I agree it should be wei2 for answering the phone.
Great that you spotted that
I checked for examples in Plexo, and they have some audio with wei4 for answering the phones too
Guess, I'll have to wait for some drama scenes to see how it's naturally pronounced. lol
Maybe wei4 is the pissed off way of saying hello on the phone
喂4，你在哪裡！？ (ー_ー゛)
是不是 should be allowed. It's basic Chinese. The mods should really do a sweep on this course to fix small issues like this.
I don't understand what I am doing wrong, I keep putting 喂 ? 你是李医生吗 ? and each time duo marks it wrong.
It looks like it's because you're putting spaces around the punctuation. Duo doesn't usually allow that. (Chinese punctuation has space built in.)
at first I did it without spaces but it marked that as wrong and I thought it might of been because I didn't put any punctuation, used punctuation but still didn't get accepted, only thing I could see was different was the spacing because for some odd reason or another my chinese keyboard that would automatically space after punctuation doesn't do it anymore so I tried to do it manually, copying exactly what they have as the correct answer.
Maybe try to change your keyboard back to Chinese punctuation. With my keyboard I can do this with [Ctrl+.] ("control period"), but it may depend on your settings.
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PeaceJoyPancakes is right. It's the space added after the question mark. I tried the sentence with the different ? Like one person had mentioned and that was still wrong. So then I tried it without any punctuation at all, no spaces, and Duo accepted it. It's all in the spacing. It does get confusing because when you use the simplified Mandarin keyboard it automatically adds the space after punctuation.
Thanks for confirming.
Neither one of my pinyin-based Chinese keyboards, i.e. on my Android phone and my Windows PC, automatically adds a space character after punctuation (the spacing is built into Chinese-encoded punctuation characters, so really nothing extra should be added), but for anyone whose keyboard is causing them trouble in these exercises, it might be easiest just to do without punctuation or spaces, as you did and as others have mentioned.
因為在電話中聽畫者只能是"你"，這個"你"常常會被省略。 the one listening the phone can only be "you," so the word "you" is often omitted.
If "你" is left out, it's better for "是" to be left out too: "喂，李医生吗？"
Yes, except that you put a space after the first question mark, which Duo doesn't like.
"喂? 你是李医生吗?” was for some reason marked as wrong? I assume it's because I added an extra space after the first question mark. So finnicky...
Probably because you put a space after the question mark. Duolingo is finicky about spaces in the Chinese course.
If you used Chinese-encoded punctuation instead of Western-encoded punctuation, you get the right spacing without having to type spaces yourself.
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Don't use punctuation or spaces. Also, you can copy and paste the answer they give when it marks you wrong.
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I'm not sure what you are asking. wei is the pinyin, which is the word as we would say and spell it in English.
I literally wrote everything correctly I just added a space after the hello and didn't question mark at end of question and it says I'm wrong??!!! The f Duolingo pls fix this it's annoying the crap out a me
I accidentally left out "ma" and it was still marked correct. Is "ma" optional here?
For this sentence I don't know for sure how a native Chinese speaker might feel about "吗" being left out, but maybe. I'd be more comfortable without "吗" with a shorter version: "喂？李医生？"
To speak in general terms, sometimes it can be left out, i.e. if it's clear from the context and your intonation that you're asking a question, which isn't necessarily easy for a non-native speaker to get a handle on.
Proceed with caution.
Thanks for your response. I've read many of your comments on other sentences and found them detailed and helpful!
I am typing exactly this and it is saying I am wrong?? What am I missing? 喂? 你是李医生吗? Is that not the same thint?
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Marked wrong for: 喂？你是李医生吗 Because i didn't use a question mark at the end? Kinda self evident isn't it?
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Yep... Second time i added a question mark and it was accepted. I guess you can't complain to much about free...
喂 should be the second tone not the fourth tone. It sounds aggressive in the last tone when I talk in Chinese with my Chinese friends.
It's in the 'telephone' topic, that's about as much context as you are going to get.
I think if you frame the sentence this way, then you don't add the 吗 at the end. It's either you add 吗 at the end, or you do the verb+不+verb thing when asking a question. Not both.