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- "Affen sind nicht dumm, sonde…
"Affen sind nicht dumm, sondern schlau."
Translation:Monkeys are not stupid, but smart.
35 Comments
And it was also the translation Duo proposed as correct in a previous instance of "schlau", in a sentence regarding a fox.
Does German not make a distinction between monkeys and apes? Apes are not monkeys! And I guess that would be Affen sind keine Affen. Weird.
325
Dumb, silly, stupid - all adjectives which should be accepted, but Duo insists on dumb, which principally means "unable to speak"
I'm not an English native speaker, but I understand that "dumb" is also an antonym of "sly" and of "smart".
I would like to know why my translation "Monkeys are not dumb, but sly" was not accepted.
As if it wasn't bad enough having to use the Americanism 'smart', which to an English speaker means well dressed, the results condemned me for omitting a comma!
- 522
Smart, in the sense of intelligent, dates back to 1300 in English. In the sense of well dressed, it dates back to 1718. The US dates back to 1776. Smart, in the sense of intelligence, has been around far longer than the United States.
Yes, but it isn't common usage in the UK at all 'Bright' - which is - was marked incorrect
look up smart in the dictionary, it says synonym of intelligence as one of its meanings...
No, they're two different kinds of “but”. Specifically: “sondern” means “(but) rather”, it is used in exactly this kind of sentences, where the first element is negated; the second element is a natural consequence of the first. “Aber” and “doch” mean “however”, they represent the general “but”, where the second statement is just unexpected given the content of the first one (“he is rich, but/however he buys cheap clothes”).
- 1682
To buld on the above comment, aber indeed can replace sondern in cases such as "nicht zwei, aber drei". However, sondern, as Ly_Mar said, is limited to being used only to dismiss the former claim as imprecise and imply the latter claim as precise, which is the exact definition for "but (rather)" in English. Also, one is much more likely to hear sondern in these cases, especially when paired with a negating word (nicht or kein), so even though both are correct, "nicht...sondern" sounds more natural than "nicht...aber".
As for the doch statement, though both that and aber do imply something in contrary, to say that doch translates as "but" in English is to understate it. More accurately in meaning and function, doch translates as "yet", which we all know means something not just in contrary, but also ironic (though not necessarily paradoxical). I hope that all clarifies.
- 1731
Noch means yet or still (as in still occuring). Doch is a partikel and has a multitude of uses. I recently watched a 15 minute video on doch and all I know is that I am 'noch' unsure of its usage.
It literally says in the lesson notes that "Affen" refers to all primates, but it my answer of "Primates are not stupid, but smart" was wrong. lol
- 1437
I would be more inclined to say monkeys are cunning. There is something negative about "schlau“ that is missing from "smart"
"Simians are not stupid, but smart." Why is this not correct? I would include then monkeys and apes. However, primates should also be accepted.
- 398
This is a literal translation of German into English, but in my dialect of English, we would not use this pattern in English to convey the German sentence. Other grammatical patterns in English that could be used include "Monkeys are not stupid, rather they are smart." "Monkeys are not stupid, but they are smart." "Monkeys are not stupid. Indeed they are smart." However, Duo only accepts the literal translation and I feel forced into writing unnatural English.
I don't think so. You really need a sharp contrasting word for "sondern". Without the "but" the meaning would differ too much.
But maybe a native English speaker can explain this better.
'Rather' has two meanings in English. One meathing is that it is paired with 'but' and is essentially synonymous with 'instead'.
The other definition is that it is synonynous with 'quite'
