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- Topic: Spanish >
- "Ella baja del caballo."
93 Comments
Apparently, I'm from the wrong century. I wrote "She alights from the horse", which technically is correct, but marked wrong for its obscurity I suppose.
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gets down from should have been listed as a translation, I was going to use gets down from... where does duo draw the line his listed translation is descends. I used descends from the horse and was wrong. Come on!
Can someone explain why this should not be: "Ella se baja del caballo."? For example, I might say: She lowers the saddle from the horse -- "Ella baja la silla del caballo." But since she lowers herself, I might expect a reflexive verb, "bajarse". Any ideas on this?
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I've been told repeatedly that most Spanish speakers do not differentiate 'b' from 'v' - generally leaning more towards the 'b' sound. We'll just have to practice understanding in context (e.g. vaja is not a Spanish word, so we must assume she is saying "baja.")
It is so, in so many languages of the world and one such example is bengali , spoken in state of Bengal ,India and Bangladesh.
Bengali being the 7th most spoken language in the world.
They say V as B.
For instance , Ravindranth Tagore is Rabindranath Tagore.
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The same in Greek. Do you know the English poet, Vyronas (pronounce y as e in poet)? He has a street in Athens just under Acropolis, where he used to live. Well lord Byron is the man.
Google translate differentiates however unfortunately. Whenever I say bebe or bebo it picks up my pronunciation better if I pronounce them with a aspirated soft 'v'.
I did hear a 'v' and it got me confused. All books I've read on learning the language said 'v' is never pronounced like the English v, and suddenly I keep hearing 'v' being sounded for a 'b'. Yaiks!
Spanish speakers frequently pronounce, b, as a sound intermediate to b and v. It is a sound that doesn't exist in English.
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Because you get down from the horse.
The real answer, though, is that the prepositions needed (or not) by each verb are extremely idiomatic and almost never translate word-for-word between languages.
The reason del is needed is because you always contract de + el, (de el caballo) into del (del caballo)
i put she descends the horse.. that is basically the same as to dismount i think it should be accepted..
the write question should be " ella se baja del caballo" Duolingo should learn reflexive verbs!
Maybe not which would be surprising for such an equestrian culture. Any native speaking riders listening in?
This is unnecessarily awkward, and comes as the first sentence/lesson in this module.
I put "She dismounts from the horse," which is one of the meanings of bajar (from a horse or bicycle). I had to go to an outside dictionary to get a hint as to this, however.
LOL.. That was my first guess and I was like "What!? That does not sound right!" I was somewhat happy I got it wrong.
Baja = both an adjective and a verb. As an adjective, to be "short." As a verb (bajar), it means literally "to make shorter" .. or, in more approximate English, where we go from a higher altitude to a lower altitude. WR lists: take down, fall, drop, unzip, come down, go down, stoop, descend, lower, even download. Another instance of Spanish simplifying things, as someone pointed out in another discussion thread. There is also the word "abajo," which is more downwards including downhill, down stairs, below, etc.
"Under" would be"debajo de." And "bajo" would refer to "first floor, ground floor" as well as being the male variant of the adjective "Baja". Bajo is also: lower, below, beneath, etc.
If anyone wants to add to that or correct me, feel free!
This goes back a bit but would someone mind explaining the rule of using de el as opposed to el. And do we always abbreviate it to del. And never abbreviate for de la, right?
Yes we abbreviate de + el = del but we don't abbreviate de + la. Same goes for a + el, which would = al.
No del comes from an abbreviation of de + el; 'of the' (masculine). When 'the' is in the sentence, you can't use 'a'.
Él se bajo del caballo is he got off the horse. Él sale de la cama is he gets off the bed.
That was exactly my first thought as well. But then I hovered over baja to learn that it is a verb.
So in spanish, there is not specific translation for off, it is just implied?
I wrote "she dismounts the horse" and it was accepted. It seems most natural to me.
Can some one explain that why we need 'del' here? Spanish sometimes make me confused -_-
I may be a huge idiot, but why couldn't this translate to ' she is shorter than the horse'? Is it because it's missing the ' mas' before Baja?
Yes, need MÁS to be shorter. In other way, BAJA is the form for the third person of the verb BAJAR.
Shouldn't the translation be "She gets off OF the horse"? Far as I can tell, there's no English rule that would invalidate it.
I thought baja meant short, not to descend from of get off of? Like: "Ella es muy baja."
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Just like "nada" could be "nothing" or "he/she/it swims", "bajar" is also a regular verb meaning "to lower/descend/disembark/etc".
Oh... okay, so they're two separate words, both mean something different just as there are words in English that look and sound the same, but mean different things. Makes sense.
I put she is under the horse. What is descending a horse?? Sounds like some beastiality shi✝ either way
Why is del needed? I know it comes from de + el but why does de have to be there?
When bajar* means go o pass from a place to another lower** is a intransitive verb and is used with complements of origin (de, desde).
Bájate de la bicicleta. Baja los platos de la estantería.
Sometimes it is formed with a complement begining with por, that express the place that is gone over during the acdescent.
Él bajó por las escaleras.
If you want to say that something is under another thing you use the word bajo. El gato está bajo la mesa. The cat is under the table.
baja can be an adjetive, a sustantive and a verb. Like a verb (the exercise) is get off. The verb is bajar. Yo bajo, tú bajas, él ella baja, nosotros bajamos, vosotros bajais, ellos bajan.
Like an adjetive it can be use in many cases.
Ella es más baja que yo. She is shorther than I.
Mi oficina está en una planta baja. My office is a lower flour.
I hate the incorrects for spelling. I put "of" instead of "off". Smh. Damn autocorrect.
I really believe this sentence needs to be reflexive (Ella SE baja del caballo) in order to mean: "She gets off the horse." Without the "se," it means "She lowers/drops/falls/goes down/descends from the horse." These may be awkward ways to say "gets off" or maybe it's some kind of accepted idiom where I'm missing the point, but compare the meanings of bajar and bajarse here: http://www.spanishdict.com/translate/bajar and form your own opinion.
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You can use whatever you want for to get off, bajar or bajarse
http://www.linguee.es/espanol-ingles/search?source=autoquery=bajar+del+bus
http://www.linguee.es/espanol-ingles/traduccion/bajarse+del+bus.html
and «Subir(se) and bajar(se) occur with the following four kinds of senses... getting on or off a vehicle. The rate of se - marking in each category was around 30% in spoken data and 10% in written» see more in:
"she dismounts" is another correct translation but Duolingo counts it as wrong!
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I almost reported it, but realized contributors would point out one needs to specify "horse" as there are other possibilities.
this needs "se" it is reflexive, she is taking herself off of the horse, reflexive
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I looked at the drop down and thought that "she drops the horse" made slighlty more sense than "she descends the horse", since that sentence really requires the word "from". Cross that i was marked incorrect for this!
The idiom "bajar de" does not require a reflexive to mean get down from or dismount.
Well, I could only type "she" and hit check after reading the meanings of each word. Lo siento about the clutter....but this was impossible.
Lesson: Use a dictionary for further explanation. Please can we clean up some of the sexual connotations - not being a prude I laughed too at the literal translation but we have to be mindful - Don't children and teachers use Duolingo. Yeah, I know probably "children" wrote the inappropriate comments but still...
Yo (me) bajo del caballo Tú (te) bajas del caballo Él/ Ella( se) baja del caballo Nosotros/as (nos) bajamos del caballo Vosotros/as (os) bajáis del caballo Ellos/as ( se) bajan del caballo Preposition Under, below - bajo , debajo de. Your translation would be: Ella está bajo el/ or/ debajo del caballo.Here, The pronouns ( me,te,se,os)are optional.they intensify the action of the verb. Example: Yo Como un tomate or Yo ( me) Como un tomate - I eat a tomato. http://www.wordreference.com/es/en/translation.asp?spen=bajar
http://spanish.about.com/od/pronouns/a/reflexive_verbs_pronouns.htm
