"Where are the stairs?"
Translation:Wo ist die Treppe?
18 Comments
1949
Because the sentence was not, "Where is the staircase?" I answered using the plural, i.e., Wo sind die Treppen? It was rejected. Please allow this translation. Thank you.
- 704
I think it should be accepted. I have reported it. Nowadays a lot of People live in Huge apartment buildings and work in huge office buildings and sleep in huge Hotels. These buildings have more than one staircase or elevator. And we also visit old cities where we want to visit buildings on top of hills. We assume there are stairs going up, more than one and just want to know where they are and which to choose. Capitol hill: Wo sind die Treppen? Chinese Wall: etc.
Would you really phrase a question asking about the location of multiple staircases this way? I would have the feeling that "where are the stairs?" would be taken to mean one staircase, and if I wanted to specifically ask about the location of multiple I would need to rephrase my question.
- 1949
Yes, I would. And, in most larger buildings, I'd expect the answer to be, "There's a staircase at either end of the hallway."
I agree with Regney - the English sentence could refer to one or multiple staircases, without any rephrasing. "Wo sind die Treppen?" should be accepted.
Imagine you get lost in a large sports stadium, and your seat is up on the third tier, you might ask someone: "where are the stairs?", which is a perfectly valid question, and nobody would assume you think there is only one staircase in the whole stadium.
This sentence discussion belongs to an English-to-German translation exercise.
"where" and "are" are not German words.
You have to type your answer in German.
- 46
"Treppe" is singular. I don't know if they accept, "Wo sind die Treppen," but it's probably worth a try.
I have use the word " Die Leiter" that means stairs too. But it wasn't right
Leiter is a ladder -- that's not the same thing as stairs.
Ladder with rungs (Leiter mit Sprossen):
Stairs with steps (Treppe mit Stufen):
Ah, I see, both are shkallë. But in English as well as in German those are different concepts. "Treppe" = "stairs", "Leiter" = "ladder". See the nice pictures presented by mizinamo.
- 68
Agree... if it was ' where is the step' then fine. But We are talking plural...
A "Treppe" consists of many "Stufen" = "steps". So "die Treppe" (singular in German) is "the stairs" (plural in English).
And, yes, the translation of "Treppen" (German plural) is also "stairs" in English! If you want to differentiate, you have to say "staircase" resp. "staircases".
