"None of them are American."
Translation:她们都不是美国人。
16 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
What is the meaning of 都 here? According to me, the scentence was perfectly fine without it
If you left 都 out, the sentence would make perfect sense but the meaning would change slightly, it'd be something like "They aren't American." 他们都是美国人 - They are all Americans / All of them are Americans. 他们都不是美国人 - They are all not Americans / None of them are American.
都 generally means "all", but when it's followed by a negative word like 不 or 没, it means "none".
Conversationally, we can drop the 都。But if we were to follow by the book, 都 would be there.
Not sure myself, but I think it is something like "all", "group", "collection", or "heard". So its "all of them are not" rather than "they are not"
I think it means all, the literal translation is "you (plural) are all not American"
It has the usual meanin: all, both. It's just that the Chinese negate this sentence the opposite way as the English would do. EN: none + are CH: all + aren't
679
Without it, it would translate more as "They are not American" -- as in, they are not all American; perhaps some of them are and some aren't. The extra word indicates that none of them are American.
- 994
Hi Duo, I don't know where to put this request but please let us review the pronunciation of the correct phrases in these Discussion pages, just as in the other language courses. Since Chinese is a tonal language, hearing the sentences and associating the tones for each word is the best way to learn it. I hope the moderators can read this, it'll help us a lot. Thanks.
Dui4, Duo this is great feedback from onyan 753 that hasn't changed things for your students after having been made a year ago. How about it?
- 964
Consider this important distinction: 她们都不是美国人。(lit. they all are not American) = None of them are American. VS 她们不都是美国人。(lit. they aren’t all American) = Some of them are not American.
Moving 都 changes the meaning quite significantly.
Weird. I was corrected on this sentence when I had written exactly the same thing. I've checked several times. First time this has ever happened
It says in correcting: "You used the wrong word" with the following characters: 他们都不是美国人。
But in my answer I had written: 他们都不是美国人。
