"老师，我不认识这个字。"
Translation:Teacher, I don't know this character.
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Can I say, "我不知道这个字."? If not, what is the difference between "认识" and "知道"? In my quest for learning Chinese, I have almost always used the latter.
I have learned that 认识for people is and 知道for knowledge but I am not Chinese so I could be mistaken or duolingo simply has a awkward sentence
Yes 知道 works. But 认识 is better because 认识 means to be familiar with. That's why we use it when we talk about people. 我认识他 technically means "I am familiar with him (recognize him from a previous encounter)". 我认识这个字 means "I am familiar with this character" or “I have encountered this character before”.
You are correct, but the difference between "认识" and "知道" in this context is subtle (generally they both mean you don't understand this character), so in my opinion "我不知道这个字" means generally the same thing here.
To my knowledge, in some Western culture people call their teachers "Sir" or "Mr. /Ms. /Mrs. Smith" This is not used in our culture, we almost always call them "老师" or "教授"(professor). Addressing your teachers/professors with their name, even "林先生"(Mr. Lin) may be considered impolite by some people.
http://grammarist.com/spelling/recognize-vs-recognise/ British English lists an alternate spelling as recognise, but the main entry is recognize. North Americans (yes, that includes Canada) prefer the ize spelling, and this is accepted everywhere. However, outside North America some prefer the ise spelling and it is not incorrect. This spelling change goes across all derivatives including: recognizability, recognisability, recognizable, recognisable, recognizeably, recognisably, recognizer, and recogniser.
The ize/ise change is based in English being influenced by French, and every other language. The Greek words changed to Latin, which used a z, but the French spelled it with an s. Purists in England promote the original ize while others stick with convention, ise.
That's interesting to know. As a Brit, I've always known -ize as the N. American spelling and -ise as British. Certainly, we were exclusively taught -ise spellings at school.
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There was a neat article in The Economist about this just a couple of weeks ago: British English used to recognize (heh...) BOTH spellings as correct until roughly the advent of spellcheck in word processors. The American word processors could just correct "-ise" to "-ize", and Bob's your uncle. The British ones had to pick a single spelling or risk passing a document that used "-ise" in one place and "-ize" in another, so word processor publishers standardized (heh, heh) to "-ise" only.
What's the difference with "understand" and "I don't know"!!!, Actually, understand sounds a lot better that I don't know.
Why can't I use word if in the meaning of the Pinyin it says "Character | Word | Words" ?
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Why isn't the following accepted: ' Teacher, I don't know this word'? . Also, there are two kinds of knowing. Ren shi = to be familar with and je dao = to know facts. The former applies in this sentence. That is, I'm not acquainted with ( ren shi )...