33 Comments
That's a very philosophical argument, but in practice there are levels of secrecy, often in government classification. Those determine which people with what type of security clearance have access to the information.
The sentence also means "he is very secretive", which expresses that there are vague levels to how secretive an individual might be.
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Actually, though I take your point, my experience is that it's not strictly true. Some secrets are closely guarded and known only to a select few, who meet particular requirements of trustworthiness. Revealing these secrets likely results in severe penalties because the information can result in great harm if known to others. These would fall into the category of top secret. Other secrets are less closely guarded and failure to protect them results in less severe penalty and less damage if they are spilled. Nonetheless, they are considered secret because the initial holder(s) of the information prefer(s) for any number of reasons that it not be widely known.
I am curious as well. And if "il" can't be "he" here, how do you say this if you if you want to say "he"?
I am not sure what y'all are asking -- it CAN be "he", that's in fact the primary translation up there: "He is very secretive". Did Duo not accept that?
Weird. I could have sworn it accepted it when I took this part of the course, which was more than 5 months ago. But I could be wrong. We'll both have to watch for it when it comes up in review.
Same here! Duolingo wrote "Here, in French 'il' means 'it', not 'he'" after I answered, "He is very secret". Perhaps it is because I didn't type "secretive".
I have never heard 'it is very secret' in spoken English. Has anyone else?
I think 'secret' is ungradable in English so 'top secret' is not correct.
'top secret' should be accepted
Again, my recording is not evaluated even though the sound waves show the microphone works. No "check," and no "continue" indicators are illuminated. So, I have to take a "wrong answer" in order to move on. This is happening too often. murphyte
The voice recognition doesn't work at all for me, either on the computer or on the iphone app. (And it's NOT just my terrible French or an equipment problem, as I have no trouble with voice recognition with Rosetta Stone.) I just had to tell duolingo I have no mic.
really? you had NO problems with rosetta stone voice recognition? wow. I bow down to you and your superior microphone.
I had a few problems, I think mostly due to the difference between European French and Québébois French (I speak the Québec version), but I had very little trouble with the voice recognition. I hated the program as a stand-alone learning tool, but it wasn't the voice aspect, it was just the structure of the lessons. I need to know what I'm trying to say and why.
Never would of guessed someone named meg in quebec woild speak Québécbois french... :p
Yeah, same here. Whatever else one can say about Rosetta Stone (and there is much to be said, and most of it is not good), their voice recognition is the best I've tried so far.
I do have a good mic (Blue Yeti), I don't know how much of a difference that makes.
Why was, "He is very secret" marked wrong? "He is very secretive." involves action on his part, but maybe just knowing about him is secret, therefore my answer.
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2017-09-19: The answer shows:
Here, the French "il" means "it", not "he".
