"I spent too much time doing this task."
Translation:我花了太多时间做这个事情。
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I wrote 我做这个事情花了太多时间... All I did was flip the sentence around a little bit, IT STILL MAKES SENSE, but duo wouldn't accept it.
I wish people would just report it instead of complaining in the comments. Buries all the useful discussion.
Raisin bread, this is a good response. You have probably seen this kind of inflexibility in Duolingo English before... your setup of the sentence is what's called a topic/ comment sentence and is pretty common in Chinese. Duolingo is just a program, a computer program that is, and they don't respond much to comments. But it's free, and you can get more Hearts by practicing in the areas you have finished through level five.
Is it wrong to say 太多了時間？ I thought there should always be a 了 in the 太。。。了 structure. But it is marked as wrong. Do you know why we can omit the 了 here after 太多?
That wouldn't be the right place for it. You'd be interrupting the meaning. However, you could put it at the end of the sentence, as a sentence-final "了", which is a colloquial usage that would suggest a presently observed change of state or similar point of emphasis applying to the sentence as a whole.
In the "太 ... 了" structure, "了" can be thought of as a special case of the sentence-final "了", and the idea expressed is that you've observed the situation and this is the emphatic conclusion that you've come too. In such a case you put "太 ... 了" at the end of your sentence or clause (or it acts as your entire sentence) and nothing comes after it.
In the given Duolingo sentence, the "了" after "花" indicates a change of state attached to the verb, and it's often reasonable to interpret this "了" as a sort of past tense.
A second "了", at the end, would attach a presently observed change of state or similar point of emphasis to the entire sentence, and the nuance would change from, basically, "I spent too much time..." to something like "(I conclude that) I have (now) spent too much time...".
I welcome corrections.
I think you're right. I've noticed that the 了 tends to get dropped in more complex sentences, but I haven't been taught or realized a rule for it. It's my assumption that the 了 gets dropped when it would be too clunky or confusing.
I've edited my comment now, after refreshing my understanding of the grammar. Still interested in hearing from a native Chinese speaker, though.
After the lesson, on the web version you're given the option to review your answers. If you're using the mobile app and that option doesn't exist, you might want to submit a bug report:
我花了太多时间了做这个事情 was marked as incorrect. Why? Why is that second 了 in my sentence incorrect? I'm complying with all of the rules we've been taught so far. Like 太+adjective+了, except when it's 不太+adjective where the 了 is dropped. So what's a good explanation for that second 了 being wrong in my sentence? I feel like all sentences are an exception to the rule.