"You can't smoke here."
Translation:你不可以在这儿抽烟。
17 Comments
Normally putting the location first would be correct, but in this case 在这儿 is modified by 不可以/不能, so switching them around sounds rather awkward (and makes the meaning more likely to be "You (that are) here can't smoke.")
1502
I don't think so. The word order is not always that important. There is no context given. The English sentence doesn't indicate the emphasis either.
There is a difference between "You who are here (now) can't smoke (no matter where you are)," and "You can't smoke (while you are) here." I think the question is whether 在这儿不可以 versus 不可以在这儿 changes the meaning from one to the other.
- 1502
The sentence structure in my eye:
- ₁[你 ₂[在这儿 ₃[不可以 ₄[抽烟]₄]₃]₂]₁.
- ₁[你 ₂[不可以 ₃[在这儿 ₄[抽烟]₄]₃]₂]₁.
So, in sentence (2), 不可以 negates both 在这儿 and 抽烟. However, both sentences sound so normal that I think everyone who were not doing the exercise wouldn't care about the word order, unless they wanted to match the word order of other's for the sake of clarity. About both sentences, you can ask whether the focus is on “抽烟”, “在这儿”, “不可以” or “你”. The listener can shift the focus freely by asking what/where/why/who, and then what 不可以 is negating is more questionable.
More confusion comes we introduce [你[抽烟[不可以[在这]]]] and [你[抽烟[在这[是不可以的]]]]. In short, context and intonation are both important but Duolingo shows none of them. Regarding the word order, I can't provide more help but say “read more and listen more; put a stress on your sentence when in doubt”.
How did you get to level 25 in Chinese? I have finished all courses and that got me to level 11...
So did I, just finished the course getting to level 11 . I guess repeting the lessos over and over again keeps increasing your score
Yep finishing the "tree" is not the same as completing the course. I believe the course goes to level 25. New questions are still occasionally appearing and the problems slowly get fixed.
In English this can be a general statement, which would mean that you don't need a subject in Chinese and the 在 at the beginning of the sentence can be dropped, so 这儿/这里不可以抽烟 should be accepted.
