"你们有几个儿子？"
Translation:How many sons do you have?
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How many sons so you have? Should be accepted, it's OK to be used in the exercise to show plural, but in the answer shouldn't be needed.
I believe you are saying "you" should be accepted as plural for "你们". If so, "you" is an accepted answer by Duolingo.
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In English you wouldn't say how many sons do you both have? We would just say how many sons do you have? - you becomes plural because you would be addressing both as implied here
unless there is a couple with sons from previous marriages.. never say never
I can't see the problem, you said that "you" should be used the mean you(both/all), But this is the case.
I think because it specifically asking for sons not children (nor daughters) in this question.
The sentence isn't necessarily addressed to two people so "both" is misleading.
also you've given me the correction "You guys have how many sons?" which isn't grammatically correct in English.
I find the english translation including the word "guys" to be awkward since it "guys' generally refers to males, so to me it's kinda like asking two men how now many sons do you have. I think most people are forgetting that the word "you" is also the proper word for "you" and for 你们. My two cents worth.
It's common in American English to use "guys" when addressing a mixed-sex group.
Even though it's unnatural to say "you guys" all the time, people actually do it occasionally and it helps underscore that 你们 is plural.
I have a lot of trouble making those symbols correspond to the sounds of the speech. For instance, the "gè" seems absent.
The recording for this sentence says 个 strangely fast, but it is there. Listen to the end of the 几 sound.
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"Do you have any sons?" may be a possibility to be considered - - if you know he has sons then my answer would be wrong but if you do not know if he has any then it would be correct!?
I'm disappointed that it's not allowed to leave out "both" in the translation because there is no actual reference to 'both' such as 'dou'.
Why doesn't he pronounce 子 with the 3rd tone? It's at the end of the sentence so it should be emphasized, correct?
In the word 儿子, 子 is toneless, at least in standard 普通话. I've never heard of position at the end of the sentence changing something's tone.
Should one have any aversion to asking mainland Chinese about the number of children they have?
So, I’ve searched that《几》and《多少》are both used to indicate questions regarding quantity. In this case, is it possible to use《多少》instead of《几》, like《他们有多少儿子？》because I think this question (the latter) is just as acceptable, just that this lesson talks about indicating quantity using《几》. But, of course, I’m still only a starter in Chinese, so I want to be sure.
Cross I lost a heart on this! ENGLISH IS MY FIRST LANGUAGE! I SHOULD KNOW THE GRAMMAR?
Not every citizen of Britain scores a band 9 in the IELTS exam.
Similarly many Chinese students fail in the Mandarin language tests.
:-)
Why don't you just go with the suggested word sons in the sentence instead of male children?
Just asking.
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My audio sounds like "ji3 ba3 er2 zi4". I mean at the character 个 instead of ge4 i heard something like ba3. Is this a bug or something? Does anyone encounter this?
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I'm sorry you don't get the point I am making but I have enjoyed this conversation. Thank you and stay safe.
Any tips to tell apart 你们有七个儿子 (You have 7 sons) from 你们有几个儿子？(How many sons do you have?).
My ears are not tuned to tones and Chinese phonetics quite yet and it's quite hard to tell apart the sounds of 七 (qī) and 几 (jǐ).
Also telling apart 你们有... from 你没有... is quite challenging. Any tips will be very much appreciated.
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At the normal speed it definitely sounds like 你没有, but at the slow speed it sounds like 你们有.
What makes this a question? When I look at the word hints, it seems to translate as "You have several sons".
