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- "Duo schreibt ein Buch über P…
"Duo schreibt ein Buch über Pinguine in Flugzeugen."
Translation:Duo writes a book about penguins in planes.
25 Comments
duo wouldn't accept my translation of "duo writes a book about penguins on planes," and would only accept it with the word "in". While I agree that this a more appropriate direct translation, I think that in english one can be "on" or "in" a place, and really mean the same thing. Thoughts?
well, being on a plane implies that the plane is going somewhere. If the plane was just a wreck lying around somewhere, you would say they're in the plane.
Semantics aside, on should probably be accepted.
An excellent point. It is a slightly different meaning, and one that's not necessarily implied by the German sentence.
I disagree, you still say you are "on" an aircraft even if it's not going anywhere. This is because lots of aircraft terminology is from boat terminology, and just as you would say you were "on" a boat, you would say you were "on" an aircraft.
Same here. We usually say we travelled on a plane & not in a plane. However, the context does help change it a little bit, depending (in situation mentioned by guy here) on what exactly those penguins are doing around the crashed plane. If they penetrated it and went into it they would be "in" the plane, if they were climbing it, standing on a downed wing, etc, they would be "on" the plane. Since good ole Duo didn't give us context, just a guy writing a book about penguins & planes, we would have to assume both would be correct. At least in my opinion!
984
I reported this. Also in my opinion the answer with "on" instead of "in" should be accepted.
I'm holding out for Penguins---On a Plane! In freezing Antarctic water, rising in the aisles! Be afraid!
See also Operation Dumbo Drop, where the US Army tries to deliver an elephant to a village in Vietnam.
And
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In English, it is ambiguous whether the penguins are on the plane or whether only Duo is on the plane and is restricting his writing activities to the time he is on planes. Is the German version also ambiguous in this way?
I would much prefer they had a real person recorded instead of the bots. I am having a hard enough time trying to "read & write" this language, then the words sound off when I try to learn pronounciations & say them to my Austrian friends. Needless to say they laugh & ask if I'm not learning Russian by mistake lol. They "looked" over the app and said the female bot is not a good German speaker, guy not much better lol
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gangsterGenes. You did well to have interpreted the word for pingooeener. I listened to it at least ten times and abandoned it. I have Never heard the word pronounced like that .....ever.
the audio was really garbled, especially for the word pinguine. It sounded like gingooniuniie. I still guessed correctly though.
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It seems to me that the female German voice bot doesn't handle long vowels properly in general, and instead, as you said, "garbles" them, making the audio turn out distorted and weird-sounding. This sentence isn't the only instance where I noticed this.
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is the German way of indicating one riding a transport would be in einem Wagen and not auf einem Wagen? Which the 2nd sentence would imply one is riding on top of the car/vehicle?
Does this only imply that Duo wrote about "penguins in plane", or could it also mean that he wrote this book about "penguins" while he was in planes.
