- Forum >
- Topic: Hindi >
- "लोग बिस्तर पर सो रहे हैं।"
18 Comments
Can this be "beds" or is the plural of बिस्तर different? Plural was not accepted, so I have to ask.
There are two ways to interpret बिस्तर in this sentence.
First is if we are talking about one bed. In which case the translation given would be correct. However, to make it clear that this is the case one can use इस / उस / एक बिस्तर.
Another interpretation is that it refers to bed in general without any reference to any particular bed. In such a case you can say, "[The] People are sleeping on-bed." (Similar to in-flight)
If you had to specifically say, "People are sleeping on the beds." you would have to use the plural बिस्तरों.
If I understand your explanation correctly, the most appropriate translation would be "The people are in bed asleep" or "asleep in bed."
I translated 'people are sleeping on the beds' but it was not accepted??? Thx :)
Yes, I have the same question. Plural was not accepted. But grammatically, it should be the same. And besides, people (plural) are not sleeping all on one bed!
The plural is only the same in the direct case. Here, बिस्तर is in the oblique case (because it's the object of पर). In the oblique case, the plural would be बिस्तरों
Does बिस्तर refer to the entire bed per se, or just the mattress, or the cot? Is चारपाई still used to refer to cots or bedframes?
As far as I know बिस्तर is for the entire bed, गद्दा is the mattress, and cot...well, that just comes from the hindi word खाट! I don't know the word चारपाई, but from a google search it seems to be a woven bed.
220
My answer was: "People have been sleeping on the bed.", which DuoLingo marked as wrong, even though the hover hint does indicate "have been" as a translation of "so rahe". So could you please explain to me why that was a wrong response? Thanks.
The correct translation for 'The people have been sleeping on the bed' is 'लोग बिस्तर पर सोते रहे हैं।
However, you're right that Hindi often substitutes the present continuous (सो रहे हैं) in place of the present perfect continuous (सोते रहे हैं), especially when a reference time is included (i.e, when there is no room for ambiguity). For example, it is more common to say लोग पिछले साल से बिस्तर पर सो रहे हैं। instead of लोग पिछले साल से बिस्तर पर सोते रहे हैं। for 'The people have been sleeping on the bed since last year' because the phrase 'पिछले साल से' makes it clear what we mean.
Sorry to say this, but... Why do Duolingo has not have tamil and telugu.
