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- "Why don't you do anything?"
"Why don't you do anything?"
Translation:Warum macht ihr nichts?
40 Comments
It's one of the accepted alternatives.
Did you perhaps make some small typo? Do you have a screenshot?
In Germany language exists: "ich, du, er, sie, es, wir, ihr , sie." The word "tu" doesn't exist. Though the correct answers are: "Warum macht ihr nichts?" or "Warum machst du nichts?" But "Warum machst tu nichts"" is not possible
Yes, this is an error that the creators of the Pearson course ( https://www.duolingo.com/comment/24052907/Duolingo%E2%80%99s-Partnership-with-Pearson ) made. Please report it.
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This is the first time I've seen the word macht (except once earlier as part of "never mind". It would be nice to be introduced to a word before it's used in a way that expects us to know it.
Because the English sentence has "not anything" (nichts), not merely "not" (nicht).
Warum macht ihr nicht? would mean "Why don't you do?".
Thanks a lot, Minizamo!!! I totally forgot this! I realized that I've read this before on the Tips and Notes:
https://www.duolingo.com/skill/de/Negatives/tips-and-notes
Thanks very much!!!
I wish duolingo would give me the correct alternative to my answer. I may have made a small type or mistake but it changes the answer from my 'du' to 'ihr' and all the verbs and everything and makes me feel 100 times dumber than I already am lol
It's kind of a ❤❤❤❤❤❤ move not to indicate wether the English word "you" is plural or singular, and then say we didn't translate it correctly.
Both singular and plural translations are accepted.
If you have a question about a sentence that was not accepted, please quote your entire answer. The error may not be in the word that you initially suspect.
Is there a difference between Warum and Wieso? Since both answers are accepted here..
To my mind, wieso? weshalb? warum? weswegen? are all basically the same: "why?"
Warum? is perhaps the most common, followed by wieso?; the wes- forms are rarely used nowadays.
they're throwing us under the bus with the 'macht'. We learnt it earlier for makes but for 'do'? cmon
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Why here 'du' is not accepted? I mean, how are we supposed to 'imagine' that is one or the other?
Not clear if you (sing) or you (pl).
That's right - the English "you" is ambiguous between singular and plural. Also, English doesn't distinguish informal from formal language the way German does.
For that reason, all three translations are accepted here (singular informal, plural informal, formal):
- Was machst du?
- Was macht ihr?
- Was machen Sie?
What was your entire answer? Did you perhaps use the wrong verb form for your chosen pronoun? Or the wrong case of the pronoun?
Warum machen Sie nicht etwas?. I got it as wrong I think this should be also correct, except that "nicht etwas" should be written as "nichts"
Yes, you should use nichts, not nicht etwas.
Using Warum machen Sie nicht etwas? is wrong.
Explainnnnn this iam confused too much
Its slight too hard nowdays,buy please eaxpalain freinds.
Why is "Warum machst du nicht?" not accepted?
Because that would be "Why don't you do?"
But the English sentence is "Why don't you do anything?"
"not ... anything" is nichts
Isn't 'Warum' a subordinating Conjugation, which pushes the verb to the end of the sentence? Why is that rule not applicable in this sentence?
No; warum is not a conjunction at all, subordinating or otherwise.
I'd call it an adverb.
Is it? I found 'warum' as subordinating conjunction on this link which someone shared on a different question forum earlier. http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/german/grammar/conjunctionsrev2.shtml Is it a different warum?
Ah, right -- yes, that's "a different warum".
Compare also these English sentences:
- I know why he did that.
- Why did he do that?
They have different word orders, because one's a conjunction, one's an adverb.
You can't say "I know why did he do that." or "Why he did that?" (though that doesn't stop learners from trying :D).
I put "Warum tust du nichts" and it was marked correct. Don't they use the verb tue, tust, tun, etc. much, or just not in this context Also, doesn't machen mean "to make"?
I don’t quite understand your question.
Warum tust du nichts? was marked correct because it is correct — even better than Warum machst du nichts?, in my opinion, especially if the meaning is something like “Why don’t you do anything to improve the situation/to help the person in need/etc.”.
machen can be translated either as “do” or “make” depending on the context. For example, seine Hausaufgaben machen is “to do one’s homework”.
How about "Wofür machst du nichts?"
wofür is something like "for what purpose / goal / use" rather than "for what reason".
Wofür sind diese Kartoffeln? = What are these potatoes for? (i.e. what is their intended future use?)
Doing nothing is unlikely to make progress towards and goal or to fulfil a purpose, so Wofür machst du nichts? sounds like an odd question to ask.
"Warum machst du nicht etwas?" is more gramatically correct. I demand retribution.
That means "Why don't you do something?"
Which is not quite the same as "Why don't you do anything?"
