13 Comments
This is a good English translation at last in this unit, great! Its the present perfect progressive tense, if you’re a grammar geek, which "indicates a continuous action that was initiated in the past and continues to happen."
"Has been here" indicates past tense, but the verb is only है. Is this correct? Perhaps it is some sort of special expression?
Translations aren't always 1:1. English might consider it a past tense because you started doing it in the past, while Hindi considers it present tense because it is still ongoing.
Many native english speakers taking this course have been demanding English translations that correspond to the most natural/usual way to convey the meaning of the Hindi sentence in uk/american English. That creates confusing mismatches between the verbatim of the two sentences, like this one, with a present tense being rendered using a past tense. I personally prefer literal translations, even if the English is somewhat "broken": "he is here since/for ten minutes", in this case. Since I want to learn Hindi, not English, that would serve my purpose much better.
503
The trouble in this example is that 'He is here for ten minutes' and 'He has been here for ten minutes' don't mean the same thing. The meaning of the Hindi sentence is much better conveyed by the latter.
English is not my native language but I think 'has been' indictes present continuous tense, which is also what the Hindi sentence indicates. Correct me if I'm wrong.
"He has been here ten minutes" is also a grammatically correct English translation.
Judging by the translations offered by duo when you click the words it seems like its tryinf to say "he is ten minutes from here"
- 503
I was marked correct for writing 'He is here for ten minutes', which has a different meaning to 'He has been here for ten minutes'. Which is closer to the meaning of the Hindi sentence?
- 432
"Has been here" means it started in the past and has continued to the present and is still true NOW. In other words, he arrived ten minutes ago and has not left. He is here now. He has been here for ten minutes. However, it seems that in Duo (incorrect English) the sentence would be "He is here since ten minutes." It is unnerving to have to read the incorrect English sentences in these exercises. I just hope the Hindi version is correct.
