"Why don't you answer my question?"
Translation:Kial vi ne respondas mian demandon?
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I got an error response for "respondas al mian demandon?" It is either "respondas al mia demando" or "respondas mian demandon" without using "al"?
Yes, exactly. al is a preposition, meaning to. Except in a few situations to do with motion which are not relevant here, you never use the -n endings after a preposition. Either you say respondas mian demandon, which has mian demandon the direct object of the sentence with no al needed; or you say respondas al mia demando, with the preposition making it the indirect object, in which case you mustn't use the -n endings.
So to help clarify:
The answer options only allow us the correct response of: "Kial vi ne respondas al mia demando?"
And the answer listed by duo is: "Kial vi ne respondas mian demandon?"
Which we did not have the words to select. I think they mean the same thing.
I thankful that i have this free app to utilize and learn languages.
And I look at it as a little diversity to stretch my mind and help me remember there is more than 1 way to say things.
I think I get it: "al mia demando" aŭ "mian demandon".
If you use the "al" you must not use the accusative "n". If you don't use the "al" you must use the accusative "n" (on the possessive adjective and its noun).
But, I wonder: is either one of the two uses "preferred" over the other?
I only use the "Keyboard" option, so I didn't face whatever challenges were faced by those who use the other option.
My first thought was to use the "mian demandon" answer, but is that choice as well-regarded as the "al mia demando" choice??? Or, are they both equally well-regarded???
I'd swear that one example in this unit had the form respondi ion and another respondi al io.
Which is correct, direct or indirect object? Or are both valid?
Is there any difference between "Kial vi ne respondas mian demandon?" and "Kial vi ne respondas al mia demando?"
The available words have the incorrect endings.
What are the available words you're seeing?
Thank you Salivanto, It is an even more confusing issue than I originally thought. The available word choices are "mia" and "demando" Duolingo has the correct translation being "mian" and "demandon". When I switched to keyboard mode and typed it as the corrected translation showed it, Duolingo gave an alternate translation using "mia" and "demondo" even though it marked it as incorrect when using the buttons to enter the answer. I hope I explained this well enough. I have a screen shot that may explain it better then I did here...
I ask, because "Kial vi ne respondas al mia demando?" would have to be a valid answer. It's hard to guess without knowing what your other choices were.
Not just, no. It's used in many of the situations where we'd use "to" in English. In this case, respondi can mean "to answer" or "to reply", so it might translate "Why don't you reply to my question?"
Is it possible that Justin misread Richard's comment the same as I did? Richard wrote:
Not just (for positions) [....], no.
I read this as "NO, JUST NO!!!!" -- which struck me as the sort of thing that someone who was as nice as a picked sock would write. I was about to say as much and then I realized I had misread it.
Choices were: Kial io vi al ne cxu respondas mia demando kapablas respondo. As a beginner I tend to think the problem is on my end and not in the computer, but this one had me stumped.
For sure there are mistakes in the course. Most of the time, though, it's little things that are overlooked by the learner.
This isn't a slam on learners, it just the fact that there are many eyes on these sentences - including learners' eyes - but only one set of eyes on an individual learner's response - unless they take a screen shot or copy-paste the info here.
If the choices are Kial io vi al ne cxu respondas mia demando kapablas respondo we can construct the correct sentence:
- Kial vi ne respondas al mia demando.