71 Comments
195
Disagree. "Another" is too ambiguous. Is the person displeased with all horse-owning or just with the idea of having one more horse than they already have?
- 1455
The German sentence doesn't specify. It can be used in either situation.
The phrase is based on the Word Bank. Even though you could say the same sentence correctly in different ways, they cannot add more/all variants of a sentence.
"i am never buying another horse". It's funny how DL suggests below "wieder" the translation "another" but then says it's wrong.
I think your translation is fine; but to elaborate on that:
"wieder" per se only means "again", not "another". I wouldn't put that translation in a dictionary.
Normally, to say that you want "another [glass of beer]", you use "noch ein/eine [thing]" or short "Noch einen/eine/eins (m/f/n)!" (If a child on a playground wants to use the slide "another time", it'd say, "Noch mal!" - das Kind möchte noch einmal rutschen.)
"Ich kaufe nie wieder ein Pferd" can be translated literally with "never again".
The way I see it, if you want to translate "I am never buying / will never buy another horse", there's no other way except with "Ich kaufe nie wieder ein Pferd" as well (provided what you want to say is still that you "won't buy a horse again [in my life]"). There's no German phrase to literally reflect "another horse".
If what you want to say (by "...another horse") is, "Stop suggesting that I should buy a second horse in addition to this one! I won't buy an additional one, never!", it'd be "Ich kaufe niemals noch ein Pferd!", "Niemals werde ich noch ein Pferd kaufen!" or suchlike.
So the question I have, it looks like you partially (if not fully) answered it already.
The way I see it, if you want to translate "I am never buying / will never buy another horse", there's no other way except with "Ich kaufe nie wieder ein Pferd" as well (provided what you want to say is still that you "won't buy a horse again [in my life]").
My first instinct was to translate this into English as "I will never buy another horse." but I opted with "I am never buying another horse." since they used kaufen instead of werden (I've been burned by the owl before). So my question is ... Is it wrong to use werde here? You said the only way to say it is:
"Ich kaufe nie wieder ein Pferd"
No, you're right - you can use the actual future tense ("Ich werde nie wieder ein Pferd kaufen") as well, of course, instead of the present-but-intended-as-future tense ("Ich kaufe nie wieder ein Pferd"). ...at any rate outside Duolingo - I don't know what the owl allows on here. (I know those owl burns, too :) )
I would say a little uncommon in usage maybe but grammatically correct as far a I can tell. My preference is to have never negate "buying a horse again" but yours is never again negating "buying a horse".
- 296
Thanks for your comment. I think 'never again' has more the tone of exasperation, but the same meaning.
Fun fact (sort of): In German, "nie wieder" can't be separated - "nie kaufe ich wieder ein Pferd" doesn't work (well, unless you want to be overly poetic). In my mind, "nie" and "wieder" are glued to each other to form one expression.
("Nie wieder!" is, by the way, a catch phrase that formed after WW II and is still sometimes referred to: "never again" war or fascism in Germany.)
Just report it. Click the little flag and choose "my answer should have been accepted."
Somebody please tell me how "I am never again buying a horse" can possible be marked wrong? In English it is perfectly grammatically correct! C'mon, DUOLINGO this crosses the line!
This seems like an oddly specific scenario that I'm kind of curious about the story behind it.
"I am never again buying a horse" - marked wrong. "I never again buy a horse" - given as the correction.
They are basically same, except the "right" answer is grammatically incorrect English. Sigh...
"I'm never again buying a horse" is considered wrong, though it has exactly the same future connotation as the German; both English and German sometimes use the present to stand for the future. But another commenter says "I don't buy a horse ever again" is accepted, and this is just bad English.
The uses of English expressed by native English speakers should be taken into consideration. But my feeling is that the German writers of this set of lessons are absentee landlords, since no suggested changes in the English ever seem to be acted on.
- 241
sigh "I am never again buying a horse" is rejected with the correction "I never again buy a horse" which is definitely not valid English. Reported
I said: "I am never purchasing a horse again." I see that as a valid answer.
- 1208
I've never bought a horse, but I have an old Chrysler and I think a horse might be more reliable.
Gosh, I wish they allowed non-language-related discussion just now. I'm a horse person, and depending on how bad your car is, a horse might well be more reliable. If you do buy a horse, make sure you go horse-shopping with a knowledgeable horse-person, so as to avoid buying a spoiled old pasture pet. But I better shut up now before I write an entire article. Und ich werde alle Pferde kaufen, die ich will, vielen Dank.
Seriously, that was accepted? That is very awkward. I wouldn't say that. Unless you meant to write, "I won't buy a horse ever again." that would work.
- 1582
It was accepted with "d" (present), yes, and I share your opinion. Usually, Duo rejects one-character typos when they generate valid words but which are not valid in the given context, thus prone to create confusion.
While I agree with you that in most situations it's "very awkward", I'll play Devil's Advocate here and say I think it works in one specific situation. I'm probably going to get the tense wrong, but I think it's acceptable in past continuous?
Basically, imagine a retired cowboy who is detailing his life's story:
"After I broke my back in the Great Rodeo of '65, I never fully recovered. From then on, it doesn't go well for me. I don't buy a horse ever again. I don't get to ride like I did ever again. Heck, I don't get to have fun ever again. Now I'm just drinking my whiskey and biding my time. Oh to be a young cowboy again ..."
That being said, you're correct. It doesn't work in everyday speech and probably shouldn't be acceptable.
I applaud your effort to give an example, but yeah, even this doesn't sound correct. I do like your sentence of "I don't get to ride like I did" but I would stop there and not put the "ever again" on it. But the "I don't buy a horse ever again" still doesn't make sense. I would say in this situation. "I can't buy a horse ever again" or even still "I won't buy a horse ever again". What's funny is that the word "don't" can work if you use is as a command: "Don't buy a horse ever again!"
- 584
Actually, as a command, even with 'I' at the front it does work... '...and so there we were, three sheets to the wind and miles from home and I make a mental note... I don't buy a drink ever again, I don't buy a lottery ticket ever again and, more importantly, I don't buy a HORSE ever again!'
- 555
The German sentence is given in the Present Tense. The English translation of "ich kaufe" is either "I buy " or "I am buying". Both are a correct form of the first person singular of the Present Tense of the verb "to buy". However, if "never again" (nie wieder) is introduced into the sentence, no native English speaker would ever say "I never again buy a horse", as Duo insists. "I am never buying a horse again" is a much more natural English translation.
I wrote it wrong the first time and Duo said it should be: I won't ever buy a horse again. When it came up again, I wrote exactly what Duo had suggested, and he said I was wrong and that it should be: I never buy a horse again. Aaargh! How is one supposed to learn the write answer???
- 826
"I am buying a horse never again". I agree not a common way of saying, but is it not communicating the same?
True, it gets the message across, but at the same time that argument is a slippery slope. On one hand, language is about communication, but at the same time it's about effective communication.
If you say something grammatically wrong or uncommon, the receiver of the message might spend more time trying to decode it than intended. For a single sentence this isn't a huge deal, but stack sentences up to form paragraphs and so on and it becomes burdensome to the decoder and ineffective.
I say it's a slippery slope because it's subjective as to how many iterations before the sentence becomes unintelligible. Would the following sentence be acceptable to you (assuming it conveys the same message)?
"Never a horse am I buying again."
It's got all the same pieces as yours and I would argue conveys the same meaning, but I wouldn't consider this an acceptable sentence either.
On a side note, keeping the negation with the verb it's negating is pretty important in English (there might be a rule for this but it's been so long I couldn't come up with it if I tried ...) so anything outside of that would throw up red flags because even if it's grammatically correct. It's awkward to hear (sorry if my brethren across the ocean say it like this all the time and I'm just ignorant!).
- 826
Actually your "Never a horse am I buying again." In my mind gets your point across quite effectively, in that example the "Never a horse" is the emphasis of the sentence, yes?
I think you're correct in that it gets the point across. It just sounds weird to me because we are so used to negating the verb in English as opposed to the noun that while the meaning is the same, the order is different enough to "raise a red flag".
When I use the word 'buying' Duo tells me I'm wrong, it's 'buy', which doesn't flow in English. Then Duo starts telling me I can use either 'buying' or 'buy'. Make up your mind, Duo!
'I am never again buying a horse' was marked incorrect and the 'correct' version given was 'I never again buy a horse'.
I am never buying? What kind of English is it? I never/I will never are understandable but never + progressive??
If you say "I will never buy a horse again" the "never" refers to the act of buying a horse (again). But it seems to me that if you say "I am never buying a horse again" the "never" is implying a continuation of your commitment to not doing so, or to your continuation in the state of not-buying, and therefore the speaker gets away with using the continuous form. It is not very elegant, at the very least, and is probably not even grammatically correct, but it is still a commonly used construction.
I responded with "I am not buying a horse again" and it was marked wrong. Couldnt this be accepted as well?
What's wrong with a translation: " I am never going to buy a horse again"?
If you mean "I will never buy any horse again" I think it would be: ich werde nie etwas wieder pferd kaufe
You have to conjugate the verb to match the subject. Ich kaufe. Du kaufst. Wir/Sie kaufen ... etc. Thus, kaufe is correct.
- 801
Hier ist nicht die Zahl eins gemeint sondern der unbestimmte Artikel ein/eine/einer/eines/einen/einem ...
