"一天一个苹果，医生不找我。"
Translation:An apple a day keeps the doctor away.
108 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
I put " One day one apple, the doctor doesn't look for me." Is this correct too?
Not quite, the grammar of 一天一苹果 means every day one apple, not just one day.
I, after a few months decided to get the paid version, so glad I did. Never looked back, out of all the languages I've dabbled in, Chinese is the most interesting...
It's things like this that make this course less useful for people for whom English is not their first language. Using English idioms to teach Chinese has to be a pretty daft idea.
Actually is an idiom in Chinese - when i was last in China, i asked some people who found it hilarious that i knew it. So as long as they're not obscure or anywher antiquated, i think it's fine.
107
2021.05.14
A simple Google search reveals that the Chinese wording here only shows up in reference to this Duo forum page and no where else
The actual Chinese phrase that hits is
一天一个苹果、医生远离我,
which as a proverb doesn't even appear in my Mando dictionary app unlike other very common Mando proverbs
- 107
As some commenter mentioned below,
药补不如食补
yao4 bu3 bu4 ru2 shi2 bu3
"The benefits of medicine are not as great as those of good nutrition"
"Let food be thy medicine,
and medicine be thy food."
has a similar meaning, is a native Mando proverb and appears in Mando dictionary apps
It's a very famous idiom yet. And there are a lot of sites for learning Chinese.
If you are European you most likely heard this idiom in your language. i am italian and it translates to "una mela al giorno toglie il medico di torno" ;)
I really love the idea of learning Chinese idioms rather than English idioms in Chinese. The first will greatly help us communicate with others, the latter will simply confuse.
Please take this out. Might as well put in "why is six afraid of seven? ... because seven ate nine."
I have never heard anyone ever say this in Chinese, it is not useful. 多喝水 or something should be learned instead.
- 168
I don't think 多喝水 is an idiom. It just means drink plenty of water. Interestingly, it is a name of a Taiwanese water brand.
冬吃萝卜，夏吃姜，
不用医生开处方。
That's a Chinese saying (and a rhyming couplet) that means "in the Winter, eat luobo (a root vegetable, like a "daikon radish"); in the Summer, eat ginger; you will need no doctor to write a prescription." The underlying meaning of this expression is the same as the underlying meaning of "an apple a day keeps the doctor away:" both expressions mean that eating good, wholesome food will help you to stay healthy.
- 106
If you want to do this, then please give us real Chinese idioms like "yao bu bu ru shi bu" please.
Besides in Chinese the sentence actually says:
"each day, one apple, and the doctor won't be looking for you".
- 106
药补不如食补. Good medicine cannot compare to good food. It effectively says the same thing as an apple a day, but it is a Chinese idiom.
It's actually not an idiom, people literally believed that an apple a day would be sufficient for their health needs.
- 346
Even though eating apples had been considered good for one's health for centuries, the adage in the form listed here came into being in the early twentieth century in the US. Apples had, up until that time, been used primarily for making hard cider. When prohibition threatened to take away the livelihood of apple growers, a bit of marketing using this slogan bolstered their sales.
- 1740
Its less effective now that people like eating perfect looking fruit; but apples produce natural statins to protect themselves when they are bruised. Eating an apple a day was a way of getting statins into your system before the creation of synthetic statins.
Yes, we know the English proverb, but the sentence does not literally translate to "An apple a day keeps the doctor away." This is misleading. Literally it is something like "An apple (each) day, the doctor is not (with, near, living with) you." Non-native English speakers will not know this. proverb.
As a native english speaker, I was able to translate it on first go, but I agree with the lot of you that this should be scrapped from the lesson.
So... I reported it.
"An apple a day keeps the doctor away" for those who are not in native English speaking countries is a very well-known proverb. I would call this Chinese sentence an attempt at making the equivalent point. It is not a direct, or even a very close translation. Translating proverbs and aphorisms is very difficult.
It's surely idiomatic, and I don't want to learn abstract things. Chinese is hard enough to already start learning these idioms.
Yeah if there was a consistent policy about whether or not phrases should be translated literally or interpreted culturally I might forgive them for this. But it's just a stupid guessing game if sometimes things are translated literally and sometimes not. They are just trying to be cute and they failed.
- 1105
All of the people who hate this because they somehow believe it is about the English idiom should keep in mind that this kind of thing sometimes occurs - that is, a culture may borrow an idiom and translate it in a way that is easy to remember. This is a very good case of that. The English version of the idiom is a rhyming one. The Chinese version here also rhymes and not only that, it hews very closely to the original English version's meaning, which is often very difficult to achieve.
This idiom is likely stick around - with people understanding that it originally came from the English idiom.
So.. Are you saying this is actually used in China these days or just guessing?
OK sure, but there's no indication that it should be translated figuratively. Literal translations are just marked as incorrect. That's a mistake.
Theoretically yes, but here 'an apple a day keep the doctor away' is a commonly used phrase in English, hence the most correct translation to what is proposed
Fun for a native English speaker, but should accept literal translation too-- they're sticklers on being literal everywhere else! I've missed so many by mixing up this/that...
I asked my Chinese grandmother about this and she mentioned “冬吃萝卜夏吃姜, 不用医生开药方 (dōng chī luó bo xià chī jiāng, bú yòng yī shēng kaī yào fāng)” or some variation of that. It translates to a eating carrots in the winter and ginger in the summer means a doctor won’t have to write you a prescription. It also rhymes!!
It actually says: "each day, one apple, and the doctor won't be looking for you".
So the translation in English is not very correct.
LOL I had the hunch that this would be the famous English idiomatic expression about an apple but still translated it literally like "An apple a day, the doctor doesn't find me."
Ah yes, a line we've all heard, yet it's false because I ain't eaten an apple in years and I'm still fine
- 168
Are there any other accepted translations besides "An apple a day keeps the doctor away" that works?
- 2017
Idioms are a natural part of any language. It's important to learn the sense of what's said, not just the words.
We're learning Chinese here though, not English. Learning Chinese is not about English idioms.
I have a question for native English speakers: Why it says "the doctor" instead of "a doctor"?
- 1960
It's a set phrase; an idiom.
If you said "a doctor" it would mean "any doctor at all." Now, normally, this wouldn't be a problem, but in this case, since it's this is a special idiom, we just mean "the concept of a doctor." So we use "the" to be specific.
Hope that helps!
Simply remove this example, idioms have no place in this excercise section. It's just confusing, especially to non-native speakers.
- 855
What's wrong with "If you eat an apple every day, the doctor won't come looking for you." Should be accepted in my opinion.
An apple a day keeps the doctor away... especially if you throw it at her head.
- 39
I dont get it why the correct answer is "an apple a day keeps the doctor away", if we translated it as duolingo teaching me, it could be "one day one apple, the doctor doesnt look foe me".
Too difficult haha I've never heard it before in my language but thanks duo it was an idiom
Eat an apple a day keeps doctor away, should be ok too. Instead of Eat an apple a day keeps THE doctor away
- 812
It's cool to learn that it's an idiom in Chinese as in English, but as an exercise for language learning, it's poorly chosen, because the grammar and vocabulary of the second clause in particular are so divergent in the two languages.
- 107
2021.09.12
Unfortunately, this not the incorrect idiom in Mando. The correct one is ”药补不如食补” (has a dictionary entry in Pleco dict app) or if you want to stay with the apple/doctor image, "一天一个苹果、医生远离我") ( an actual term on search engines). If you want to use this English proverb in the future, those are the two that I would recommend remembering
"一天一个苹果，医生不找我。" is just something Duo made up to "approximate" the English proverb. It's not something that is even popular to say in Mando to and among native speakers
An apple a day keeps the doctor at bay ... Means the same thing, no?
I, after a few months decided to get the paid version, so glad I did. Never looked back, out of all the languages I've dabbled in, Chinese is the most interesting...
- 264
I put "An apple a day keeps doctor away", so omitted "the" and got marked wrong! I'm asking again: am I learning Chinese or English here?
- 107
2021.12.24
Native speakers consider your English broken without "the doctor". This Mando sentence isn't even the correct Chinese for this English idiom, so you are learning neither languages correctly unfortunately
There was a time in America when eating apples just wasn't done. It was a religious thing. Adam and Eve in the garden with the snake and the apple. In order to promote the burgeoning apple industry in the new States, Benjamin Franklin coined the phrase and published it in his widely read, "Poor Richard's Almanac". It has become idiomatic ever since.
