"你会读这个字吗？"

Translation: Can you read this word?

[HannesB3]

Zi is character not word

[JustusRobi3]

Yes, zì generally refers to Chinese characters; and in Chinese, since the characters are run together, rather than grouped into "words" of several characters, it is not clear what counts as a "word" in Chinese. Therefore, zì is better translated as "character" rather than word.

[e1VpVxkl]

Can you read this CHARACTER? = Accepted: Nov. 19, 2019.

[Lightning_11]

Chinese doesn't seem to have characters the way English does. It seems like Chinese only has symbols for words, and that most words are made up of multiple, smaller words. It seems like Zi makes the most sense as "word", but it's hard to tell.

[WynterEvergreen]

字 is a word

[CalvinN4]

Semantics. Word and character are the same for pictographic languages like Chinese and hieroglyphics

[Jocke111]

A character is a word. However i always use 字儿to refer to characters

[Rk5I3]

How do you pronounce them together? Ze`r?

[ErikStrelz]

Would 词 (cí) be used more commonly, or no?

[Seiryuu]

词 is used in the context of "lyrics" or a "line" of poetry.

[Anastasia_LL]

DU means "to read aloud, to pronounce", KAN means "to read silently"

[DebbieJust]

How does 会 become 'can' instead of 'will'? I wrote "will you read this character" and was marked incorrect. Why?

[Melarish]

It means both 'can' and 'will'

[Dan111_]

What's the difference between kan and du?

[Donard6]

"Are you able" is just as good a translation as "Can you" and should be accepted

[Trekkie471701]

Why 读 and not 看?

[Andrew-Lin]

你會讀這個字嗎？

[Meemansa9]

Can we use " 你 可以 读 这个 字吗？” for "can you read this character"?

[TJ_Q8]

How can I differentiate in meaning between "Can" and "Will" for the character 会?

[CalvinN4]

Zi is differently translated as character and word in this app. Can we please be consistent

[Donard6]

or can you please arrange to accept both? Remember that translation is an approximate mapping from one language to another

[Meemansa9]

I guess 'du' is for 'reading aloud'.

[SamiAezy]

Shouldn't "Will you study this character?" be accepted since 读 can be translated as "to read" and "to study"?

[jasmine959]

They take symbol in another sentence but now they don't take it. Duolingo!!

[Elaine1950]

Are the terms "character" and "word" interchangeable?