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- "The son is making all his de…
"The son is making all his decisions with his mother."
Translation:Der Sohn trifft all seine Entscheidungen mit seiner Mutter.
25 Comments
Don't know how to report it... I had the exercise "Choose all correct" and it considered sentence "Der Sohn trifft all Entscheidungen mit seiner Mutter" as a second correct answer. However that is wrong from a translator's point of view - the word "his" isn't translated, so this sentence shouldn't be accepted as a correct translation...
You can report it from your PC by selecting the option: The translation is wrong or has an error. Alternatively, you can report it from your handheld device by tapping on the flag and typing your suggestion into the comment box. I can assure you that they look into these suggestions as well, but they're probably a bit biased towards the PC "Report" button. :)
EDIT: Read @rfo's comment below.
The rfo's comment is nice and helpful, thank you for that.
However, I still insist on disabling the sentence without "his" from the exercise "Choose all correct answers." I know how the incubator works, because I am a moderator in EN for CZ course - they only need to "deselect" this sentence from this type of exercise (it still remains between correct answers when translating).
Secondly, and this is more a fun fact, the message box in "Report problem" WASN'T WORKING AT ALL till Mai 2015. Now the contributors really can read what you write them while reporting, before they couldn't. In all courses by the way.
And we in Czech course don't recomend people to use the option "The translation is wrong." Without any descripiton they don't have a clue what you mean and most of the sentences have between 100 and 500 possible translations (Czech is very various and flexibel) so they only have a look at the main translation and if that is ok, than they don't do anything with this kind of report.
Thanks, Nemesis! I did know that the "Report" wasn't working till May, because I chanced upon a Duolingo discussion that said the same thing. Well, I'm happy that it is at least working now!
And regarding The translation is wrong..., adding a comment that explains why you feel the translation is wrong might help the moderators.
By the way, between 100 and 500 possible translations? WOW, and here I thought German was tough, comprehensive and vast.
Yeah, for an ordinary sentence :-) For example the sentence "Now I know even less than before" has 2160 translations. The sentence "If the students fail, we fail" has reached the limit which is 3000 translations ;-)
And yes, now with the text box working finally, it is possible to report this error to the contributors, you're right.
This isn't right. It actually said "Der Sohn trifft all seine Entscheidungen mit seiner Mutter". I believe this is correct.
It also said "Der Sohn trifft alle Entscheidungen mit seiner Mutter", which is what the OP meant.
Generally both are correct. But here "all" does really sound a little bit off to my native ears. Mind, you would have to use "all" for not countables like "all sein Geld", "all sein Hoffen". Or you could express it different and more modern as "sein ganzes Geld" or "sein ganzes Hoffen".
Apart from that, my translation was just "alle Entscheidungen" (not accepted of course), and this is the second most German sounding translation in my view.- Germans tend to omit the possessive pronoun like "his/seine" if the relation is clear because of the context. (It is clear that they are his decisions, whereas you have to tell that it is HIS mother. Even so, you could also say "Der Sohn trifft alle Entscheidungen mit DER Mutter" for the same reason.)
My most natural translation would be "Der Sohn trifft alle Entscheidungen zusammen mit seiner Mutter."
Ich bin völlig einverstanden: Es ist klar, dass der Sohn nur seine (und sonst niemandes) Entscheidungen fällen kann. Seine ist daher überflüssig.
Thank you for your detailed answer. I would however disagree that "Seine" can be omitted in respect to "...his decisions with..".
In English you can also omit "his" is specific context. But his emphasises the decisions being made with his mother.
For example you could replace this with "...his wife's decisions.." as in the case he is acting on behalf of his wife...
Duo can be really picky sometimes as well... where if you have used specific words in a sentence it seems to be a game of roulette what it will accept as an answer
Would it be correct to write "zusammen mit". Just out of interest - I would always say it like that as a German.
No. In German, to make a decision is eine Entscheidung treffen (or fällen). German isn't English so it won't use the same formations. So, basically there's no reason other than "that's the way it is". ;)
Viel Erfolg!
Der Sohn macht alle seine Entscheidungen mit seiner Mutter is accepted by DL.
To omit the word "seine" is to alter the meaning of the sentence. It suggests to me that the son makes decisions with his mother effecting others as well as himself. I have reported it FWIW.
I thought it was (Time, Manner, Place) so wouldn't it be, "Der Sohn macht mit seiner Mutter alle Entscheidungen." Or are they both correct, thanks for the help!
In German there isn't really a strict order of those elements. "Der Sohn trifft alle Entscheidungen mit seiner Mutter." Would be the most neutral one, while your version is fine too - even "Alle Entscheidungen trifft der Sohn mit seiner Mutter" is possible. The only 'rule' is that the finite Verb "trifft" has to be the second element in the sentence.
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The sentence doesn't have a Time or Place, so there is no way the word order can fail to be Time-Manner-Place.
Mixed inflection of what? There's no inflection in mit seiner Mutter other than the sein being fitted for the dative case (because of mit) and feminine gender (because of Mutter). I don't know if sein is strong, weak, mixed or whatever else - grammar at that level is simply too confusing.
The word make is translated as machen when you click on the word, but it won't accept that translation, only trifft is accepted.
