"Is his telephone number 8765?"
Translation:他的电话号码是八七六五吗？
129 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
my ma at the end was considered incorrect, why?
You used the wrong word. 他的电话号码是八七六五吗？
goosh I used the wrong symbol for it... what's the other one, they look like exactly the same until you see from the eyes on the screen :-O
I opened discussion for the same reason! 吗 (ma) is a question marker; 码 (ma, 3rd tone) indicates a numerical value. I only understood this because I got it wrong, stared at the available answers until I noticed the different radical, then looked up the latter character in a dictionary. 号码 as a compound word means "number." Duolingo's lesson interface is still inadequate for actually learning the meanings of characters. :-\
Posting to see if I can get access to a playback button.
Edit: looks like it's still not available yet. This is very frustrating, why isn't this enabled? It's cumbersome to copy and paste these sentences into external sites for a TTS. I just want to hear each sentence and I don't understand why this hasn't been built in from the beginning.
This course would benefit enormously by just giving the user more information in general, you're supposed to learn characters (a complex system), pronunciations (somewhat context sensitive), meanings (context sensitive, combined with compound words), and grammar (word order, particles, classifiers, degrees of politeness, what have you) all at the same time (compared to eg. European language courses where you're mostly dealing with just meanings and grammar), which compounds the inadequacies of the DL method imho.
Was your sentence "你的電話號碼是不是8765?"? If so, your sentence is correct. "是不是" is usually used as a marker of confirmation, and implies that the sentence is a question. Thus, there's actually really no need to follow the basic structure of a question that ends with "吗"
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Since the verbal is too fast to follow, it would be really helpful if each character (or double characters) would be verbal when one hovered on it, the same as the French course. I can't learn which sound is which when I can't hear the sounds individually; especially since the lessons don't tell me the meanings. The sentences tell the meanings when you hover but not the sound. I need both meaning and sound to learn. It seems obvious to me that a learner would need both the meaning and sound of new words. I don't understand why this Chinese course never seems to have both together.
I'm not sure what's the difference between do sha and the end of that sentence in a question. When sould I use this last character?
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Duo shao means "how much". (Well, actually it means "a lot, a little"). So, it is used like shen me (what), but for numbers.
So, if you are asking for someone's name, you ask "his name is what?" If you are asking for someone's phone number, you are asking "his phone number is how much?" We dont really ask it that way in english, but it makes more sense in other places that duo shao is used (like, for money, etc).
Does that help?
I find it interesting to see how chinese is taught here. I took a few years of Chinese in school and am trying to relearn the vocabulary that I have mostly forgotten, and eventually learn more. I imagine it must be pretty hard to start from scratch in this app, though.
Actually its been really good ! Ive found it pretty easy to follow and i think people just find ways to complain. Your explanation helped clear up my misunderstanding anout Duo Shao, thanks !
I understand there is a difference when you ask a question. So why the switch from "duo shao" to "ma" when we are still using numerals and asking a question?
Use 'ma' if the question is one which could be answered with a yes or a no.
If the question cannot be answered with yes or no, then you must use a different character or phrase, like 'duo1 shao3'; the key there is learning which question-word or phrase goes with which question.
My undersanding is that duo sha is asking the question "what is it?", whereas here the question is "is it that way?".
It seems inconsistent as to whether or not we need 号码. For example, on another sentence 她的电话是一二三四 was given as the correct answer. Do we need to be more explicit here because it is a question?
I would like to know this too. I got one similar question correct; '你的电话是。。。。吗？' means 'Is your telephone number ....?', but for this one I don't know why it's wrong!
"电话" has the literal meaning of "telephone", a noun in English. "电话号码" means telephone number/ phone number. People would mostly use "你的電話號碼是什麼啊？" or "你的電話號碼是多少？" when asking for one's phone number. "电话" is typically only used in colloquial contexts.
Why in previous questions we didn't have to specify 号码 in order to indicate a telephone number? What's the difference here?
Double check your answers. I thought mine was correct, but it was the wrong ma character. I was wondering why they never tested recognizing characters with similar choices. I guess they actually do.
Keeps marking me wrong when I give the correct answer of 他的电话号码是八七六五吗, and then provides my answer as the correct solution :/
The two "ma" characters are nearly identical -why, when they have different meanings? Only the top of the first half is different, perhaps there is an interesting etymology involved!
The original character in traditional Chinese (馬) is a picture of a horse. The character for mouth (口) is added to indicate "a word that you say like", or "a word that sounds like". It's called "sound loan" or borrowing.
《吗》is participle denoting a question, it has a short neutral tone sound. 《码》means "code" or "number", has a 3rd tone (mǎ) and when in conjunction with 《号》 as 《号码》 refers to a number.
I'm in Shanghai, China right now and trying to use the phrases, but everyone I talk to is telling me that I'm talking like an official type person - basically way, way too formal. I wish this app had a way of actually talking like real Chinese people, i.e. slang speak, cause these phrases that it's teaching me are making it harder to speak to people over here.
It would be nice, but only if they taught it in the later courses. Wouldn't want to mislead new learners.
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I put "ma" instead of "me" at the end! What a mistake! Some english speakers probably can't even tell the difference!
Oh well...
My answer is exactly the same and it is not accepted, so i cannot progress. What to do?
That happens to me very often. PLUS, it counts against me, so I run out of “ health” as a result. Very annoying.
Doesn't accept 是不是structure... I think I'm quitting this course, it's broken even at the most basic level.
Why isn't the 是不是 question pattern accepted? For example, my answer was "他的电话号码是不是八七六五？" It's asking the same question as the accepted translation, why isn't it correct?
Half the problem is the poor quality of the Chinese Characters on the screen. It would be much easier to distinguish and learn if the characters were larger and bolder.
Since years web browsers can zoom in/out text on webpages. Try using Ctrl++ to zoom-in and Ctrl+- to zoom out.
Because you're not asking what his phone number is, but if that known number is his.
When you expect a yes/no answer, you can make the sentence as an affirmation and append 吗.
As you didn't paste here what you wrote, we have no idea what you did wrong (or if there is a problem with the exercise).
Your phrase would be understood without the "?" because of the 吗; however it'd be more correct with it. Punctuation marks in Chinese came from China's adoption of some Western traditions in an effort to "modernize" during the late 20th Century.
It's pretty simple actually. 電話號碼/电话号码 is used in more formal situations. Like for example "What's teacher Li's telephone number?" You wouldn't ask "What's Teacher Li's number". But if you're asking a friend or a friend's friend then you can just use 電話/电话
This happens often to me. If my answer is identical to the “correct” answer, I just ignore the indication that my answer is “wrong.”
I answered the question exactly how it tells me I should have when it tells me I am wrong. This has happened multiple times with this question. I would post a screen shot but that is not enabled.
I do not know why this was marked wrong. Because I missed a question mark? Other times it was ignored. It is misleading
I wrote this correctly and it is being scored incorrect. This needs to be fixed.
他的电话是八七六五吗？is still considered wrong... How would I know when to add 号码 or not??
They talk too fast, I feel someone who speaks chinese would slow down a bit for a foriener.
Quite likely. Someone who is Chinese told me to slow down when practising the phrases, so as to get the tones right, and NOT to try and speak that fast.
I got the right answer according to the given one but it was marked wrong.
Strange, my answer was noted incorrect but it exactly the correct sentence structure.
I don't see difference BTW my answer and the correct one. Still my answer rated incorrect
I am confused: one time this sentece would be considered as right one, another time as wrong one...
I wrote it right and it says it's wrong and writes what it should be but it's exactly the same as what I wrote. Ugh
My answer is correct. I don't understand why you say it is wrong. Very confusing learning this way.
If you think your answer is correct, you'll need to report it. The option is usually next to the comments button (the flag icon) that appears after you've answered the question.
Otherwise, commenting that your answer was right without further explanation does nothing for people seeking useful knowledge through the comments. Duolingo will not change their programming by reading the posts, they'll do it through the report button.
The sound of "65" (paired in this exercise) in Mandarin sounds like a single word. Is it just me?
While the character wú is mising in the options, so I cannot choose it and it won't let me move on.
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Just can't get this right. Have tried writing down the correct version and repeating it for the same question but it keeps getting rejected!
When 是 is used as auxiliary verb, translates as to be.
他是电话 would translate to He is a phone which, although grammatically correct, is a weird statement indeed.
的 is the preposition of, a possessive particle, or an ablative cause suffix used as auxiliary verb.
In this exercise, 的 put after 他 (He) turns it into His.
I wrote the correct answer and he put it wrong, also when I saw the correct answer from Duolingo it was exactly what I had written, it is unfair, they should correct it.
Isn't "duo shao" used in questions with numerals? This question is about a numeral!
I forget to translate the shi if I didn't say the shi would that be as bad as saying F U. I need to know
I forget to translate the shi if I didn't say the word shi would that be as bad as saying a curse word l need to know
I forget to translate the word shi if I don't say shi would that be as bad as saying something to get the cops to show up l need to know
There is something wrong here. I type in chinese but it says wrong when it's exactly right.
Why did not only 他的电话号码八七六五马? Works? I am not clear even know what is 是 it is used in quite a lot of different settings. Say something about this...
