"Is it expensive to take a taxi there?"
Translation:坐出租车去那里贵不贵?
63 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
There was a user named Learning German who made so many helpful grammar posts. It appears that they are all gone now.
Saying 很贵吗 is specifically asking if it's "very expensive", not just if it's expensive. The real grammatical issue here is that an adjective can't stand alone as the predicate of a sentence. This is why 很 is often used a filler word, not really meaning "very", just filling this grammatical function, before adjectives as predicates. However, the 吗 at the end counts as the adjective "not being alone" and 很 is not required. Therefore, if you add 很 anyway, 很 is no longer a filler word and specifically means "very".
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The English translation on Duolingo is "Is it expensive to take a taxi there". In this translation you can't really tell do they think it's expensive at that location or to that location, so I think both translations should be accepted. Otherwise they should change the English translation to have just one meaning eg. "Is it expensive to take a taxi to get there" would be more appropriate.
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I wrote it like that and it was marked as wrong, but I'd also like to know if there really is a problem with this way of arranging the sentence (putting the destination before the means of transportation)?
I think the sentence "Is it expensive to take a taxi there?" means "is the taxi over there expensive?" which, if translated to Chinese should be "那里的出租车贵不贵?“
But if Duolingo means to say "Is it expensive to take a taxi to go there?" then "坐出租车去那里贵不贵?" would be a correct translation.
Hence, the English here is quite misleading and isn't fit with the Chinese translation :/
@duolingo, please fix the English.. hahaha
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Duo, you are making ambiguous sentences, and we are losing hearts instead of learning languages. Shame on you!
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It is ambigueous for me to know wether it means to take the taxi to a destination="there" , or to take it at the location once you are there. Is it expensive to take a taxi to Londen, or in Londen. Where you would replace the word "London" with " there" in that sentence
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The English sentence is really ambiguous; as it was explained two years ago, "there" might just as well be interpreted as "at [location", as it can "to [location]". Hence, both translation should, reasonably, be allowed.