"我们要刀和叉。"

Translation: We want knives and forks.

[AlexTse3]

In English, one would typically say "forks and knives" in that order

[JohnTurnbu7]

Might be a regional difference, I grew up with knives and forks.

[George792719]

Of course, and as usual, the acceptable English answers are zilch. What is wrong with: "We all want a knife and fork". It won't accept it though.

Yao 要 can mean anything from want, to need, or have to have something. And 我们 can mean we, we all, or we both. The rules change all the time in this course. Drives you nuts, other courses like the French course are very slick and good products but the Chinese never seems to get any upgrades or work done on it.

[Pogosticksteve]

I mean, I wouldnt say one order is more typical than another, but both should be accepted.

[rackle_monster]

No you wouldn't . Knives and forks is pretty normal as an expression. I'm British and say it that way

[Guilhermealuz]

Why not 'we need knife and fork'? Why does it need to be plural?

[thelappin]

It doesn't need to be plural. Although in most contexts that you'd use this sentence it probably would be. Regardless, duolingo wouldn't accept the exact sentence you wrote anyway since English needs articles, i.e. "We need a knife and a fork". I don't know if that's accepted because I haven't tried it, but it should.

[1GRB]

We want knives to drink tea

[Karoliina765050]

Why isn't it 刀子 and 叉子?

[Imnuts7]

Both are correct but you hear 叉子 more than 刀子.

[Tim728458]

Yeah, this is what I know it as. I've never heard anyone say just "dao" or just "cha"

[ExtremeDabber420]

How do you differentiate between 'need' and 'want' in Chinese? Because they seem to be both the same character, '要'.

[a.charmedlife]

I think 'want' translates more closely to '要'. Whereas 'need' would translate more closely to '需要'. For this sentence, I suppose duolingo isn't being too strict with the translation as either 'need' or 'want' would work fine??

[DebbieJust]

And why does it have to be need instead of want? According to the hover hint and what we have learned 要 can be want too.

[Eric492387]

"We need forks and knives" should also be accepted.

[Eresniale]

I heard the 刀 as, well, definitely not the first tone. Or at least it sounds as a lower tone than the following 叉.

The voice does sound like that of a native speaker, though, so I don't expect the fault to be with the speaking part.

Is there a trick to learn here?

[e1VpVxkl]

In the listening exercise ("Tap what you hear") I even hear the male voice say: yōu náo!

It is remarkable that the pronunciation is sometimes very bad ...!

[Lankavatara]

Here are "want" and need both acceptable, but next one sentence only "need" is acceptable, and last one sentence only "want" is acceptable. Why it's so non-stable in translation?

[Vagabond_Frog]

So that's why tones are so important.

[yuvPlE]

WHO SAID IT IS PLURAL AND NOT SINGULAR?? WHY KNIFE AND FORK CANNOT BE ACCEPTED??