14 Comments
Should "The milk has gone spoilt" be right? It's been marked as bad and corrected to ""The milk has gone bad".
You can say "The milk has spoiled/soured", "The milk has gone off" (British usage), or "The milk has gone bad" (North-American usage).
1790
Thank you for this useful comment about possible translations of "Die Milch ist schlecht geworden." I put "The milk has spoiled" and that was rejected, but I think it is valid, and is common in midwest United States. I have also heard "The milk has gone bad" which is closer to the German sentence structure. I have never heard the British phrase "The milk has gone off" and am delighted to learn a new English phrase.
"gone bad" and "gone off" are both used in Australia too. "has spoiled" is not heard very often.
- 1790
I think of "werden" as meaning "to become". It implies a change from one condition to another. Even though it would seem a bit awkward in English to say "The milk has become bad" that would be an accurate literal translation.
That's true, and werden is not a transitive verb. Here schlecht is not a direct object but a predicative adjective.
I knew before I wrote it that "The milk has gone sour" wouldn't get past Duo. But that's what we say in the UK. Or "The milk has gone off".
- 1790
In US, also, we could say "The milk has gone sour" or "The milk has gone bad." Any of these would demonstrate an understanding of the German sentence. It will just take time for Duo to add all possible translations to its database. I hope everyone is reporting their suggested translations to help them do this.
