"The beer is weak, the bear is strong."
Translation:Das Bier ist schwach, der Bär ist stark.
44 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
"The" in "The beer" has a hover-tool-tip that recommends "der", yet when I used it, it was marked incorrect.
"The" in "The beer" has a hover-tool-tip that recommends "der"
No! The hints never recommend anything!
As you have seen, they are far too unreliable for that.
They are "hints", not "suggestions", let alone "recommendations".
The system tries to show the most relevant hints near the top, but it easily gets confused, especially when one occurs twice in the same sentence but has to be translated differently each time.
You still have to learn German! You cannot merely piece together the topmost hint.
Learn nouns together with their article -- learn der Bär and das Bier, not just Bär and Bier.
It would be super helpful if Duolingo mentioned this in one of those loading screen tips instead of "Hallo means Hello"...
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They could also include things like:
- Read through the comments before posting a question that's been asked (and answered) 37 times already.
- Copy and paste (or take a screenshot of) your answer into your post before you complain you were unfairly marked wrong.
- "Me too" and "Agreed" and "Thanks" count as clutter. Stop it.
- Try an online translation dictionary (like dict.cc or CollinsDictionary.com or Pons.com or linguee.com) before asking how to say "tall" or "eat" or other easy-to-find words.
- Translate.Google.com is NOT authoritative.
- German-to-English (and vice-versa) is not always simple word-for-word substitution. Sometimes (usually) grammar changes.
- IT'S AN ESZETT, NOT A BLOODY "FUNNY B"!!!!!
- Don't use all caps in your comments. (Unless you really mean to yell.)
Then I'd argue this isn't an appropriate sentence for this level - especially when getting this wrong means losing a heart and potentially getting locked out of lessons for the rest of the day.
Actually it always recommends the correct answer. But Überraschung tis time it didn't! It's a hint and should not always be used.
- 2047
Duo always recommends the correct answer for some situations. It is the student's job to figure out which correct answer applies to their particular situation.
"Das Bier ist schwach" sounds super weird. You may say a beer is strong (stark) if it has a high percentage of alcohol and you may say it's "nicht sehr stark" if it hasn't but saying it's "schwach" sounds more like a colloquial way of criticizing the quality of the beer.
- 2047
Canadians say American beer is weak all the time. In fact, they hardly ever mention American beer without adding that it is weak.
Yes, but LottaSophie is still right. In German, you don't say "schwach" in connection with beer or any alcoholic beverage or coffee. They are either "stark" or "nicht stark" or may be even "dünn", but not "schwach."
- 2047
You seem to be correct. A search for Das Bier ist schwach on google puts Duolingo at the top of the list of uses of it so it can't be widespread.
Us Germans like our beer strong in taste and usually with some higher alcohol levels as for example Americans are used to. We like to refer to those weak tasting beers as "watery" or "thin" as well. Depending on what kind of beer we're talking about it might also be slightly or even strongly bitter, making foreign beer taste "schwach" (weak) to us. :)
Yeah some sentences in the lessons do not make any sense, but feels like they have been given to just help us practice the words and semantics. Some sentences in the animals section is outright hilarious.
Dulingo often suggests the incorrect form of "the"
Duolingo does not "suggest" things.
The hints are meant to jog your memory. You are responsible for selecting the correct form based on the gender of the noun (which you have to learn and memorise) and the case you need in the sentence.
Here you have Bier which is neuter and Bär which is masculine.
So you need das Bier and der Bär.
This is something you need to know.
The hints for "the" should have both das and der -- and you have to know that "the beer" is das Bier and "the bear" is der Bär. The fact that das is higher or der is higher is not a "suggestion".
The word "the" occurs twice in this sentence; in "the beer", it has to be translated das Bier, in "the bear"; it has to be translated der Bär.
Duolingo isn't smart enough to know which "the" has to be der and which has to be das, so it will show both der and das for both of the "the"s, in the same order.
You cannot rely on the topmost one to be "the right answer" -- they're hints, not answers.
So as long das comes up in the list of hints, it's fine.
Ah but it is. It's not that hard of an addition to check the words immediately surrounding the sentence, as proven by such logic in other courses. There's already enough of a database to determine if the user's input is correct, adding that same data in the hints is easy as pie. They just haven't got around to it yet in this specific course because there's a fucktonne more languages and courses to check.
I just report it and move on. Literally no reason to get into the comments over it. The comments are here for discussion as to the actual lesson, not technical issues.
I guess if we wanted to say "the beer is strong", we wouldn't use "stark" - or would we?
- 1202
That will work on some (most?) cell phones.
This article at the DuoLingo wiki provides details on various keyboard layouts/input methods.
BTW: "umlaut" has only a single "m".
Bin ich der einzige, die das Bier mit dem Bär verwechselt? Ich glaubte, daß es "The bear is strong, the bear is weak."
How do you know when it is either "Der" "Die" or "Das"
You have to look up each noun in a dictionary and memorise the gender and the plural form.
any tips?
Sorry. No shortcuts, in general.
Gender and plural form are mostly unpredictable and simply have to be memorised.
why does Duo not put the correct word first in the tips?
Because it doesn't actually understand English or German.
So when it sees that the word "the" occurs twice in the English sentence, it's not smart enough to know which one goes with the der (Bär) and which one goes with the das (Bier).
So it simply puts both der and das into the hints for "the" and trusts that learners will be able to select the correct one.
They're hints, after all, not "suggestions" or "recommendations" or "answers".
Are you smarter than a computer?
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OMG!!! Maybe to push us to learning rather than parroting?!?!?!!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!?!?!?
A "tip" is not intended to be the correct answer; it is intended to guide you to the correct answer.
Could anyone explain in ' Das Madchen isst Äpfel ' if it was the apples , would it be 'den Äpfel '?
if it was the apples , would it be 'den Äpfel '?
No; it would be die Äpfel -- as the direct object, you need the accusative case, thus you would use the plural accusative article die.
den would be masculine accusative (wrong number/gender) or plural dative (wrong case).
I understand the number is more so it is not 'den' but 'die'. But gender wise too die is correct right?
There are no gender distinctions in the plural in German -- in a way, plural acts like a fourth gender alongside masculine, feminine, and neuter.
- 2047
If you are referring to the hints that are offered in specific examples, those show different uses of the word. They don't necessarily reflect the situation given in the example.
If the tips you refer to are those one page lists of essential elements of the goal of that lesson group, then they are very helpful. Those tips are so densely packed and terse that they often are not easy to understand at first glance. But that just means more reading of them and practice using them to increase your understanding of what they try to teach.
Der starker Bär trinkt das schwaches Bier
Remember weak adjective inflection after a definite article!
Just out of curiosity, is it ok to use a comma splice like this in German? I'm not trying to ruffle feathers, just looking for information.
- 1202
I don't think there is any German grammar rule requiring independent clauses to be separated by a period. It is rather difficult to find something that doesn't exist, but here are a couple of discussions on the topic:
I find it somewhat informative that there seems to be no term auf Deutsch for "comma splice". Dict.cc, for example, provides only a definition: "Zusammenziehung zweier Hauptsätze mit einem Komma ohne Konjunktion". If it were a thing, I'm certain they would have a term for it.
At Deutsch Online (udoklinger.de) there is a page dedicated to Kommaregeln which includes a couple of examples of concatenating (Beispiel 1) or inserting (Beispiel 2) main clauses (Hauptsatz) with commas (section 7 on the page):
In Satzreihen werden Hauptsätze durch Kommata getrennt. (Beispiel 1) Das Komma steht auch, wenn ein Hauptsatz in einen anderen eingeschoben wird. (Beispiel 2):
- Er rannte in den Klassenraum, er sah sich um, er handelte.
- Du kannst, ich betone es noch einmal, nicht an dieser Schule bleiben.