"Er läuft auf der Straße."

Translation: He walks on the street.

[koyunlar]

Why can't this be:
He is running on the street
?

[octavzlatior]

Dang it, Duolingo. I wrote "He is walking on the street" (which is the most likely translation actually) and lost one heart... Last time I use continuous tense in these exercises, I swear!

[Levi]

@octavzlatior: "He is walking on the street." sound absolutely fine to me. You should submit a report for your answer to be accepted next time.

[killary45]

I am getting used to Duolingo so I got this right because I put in the literal translation "He runs ON the street"?

But it does not sound right to me. Would we not say "He runs IN the street"?

[NikhilBeke]

With Laufen' (verb of action) shouldn't the two-way preposition, auf, be akkusativ?

[mizinamo]

Not necessarily.

The choice of dative or accusative after two-way prepositions has nothing to do with the verb as such.

It's to do with whether you are describing a location, or the destination of motion.

Here, there is motion; but the walking takes place only on the street. The street is this the location of that motion, not the destination or endpoint or target of motion which starts somewhere else.

[Adrian_Olteanu]

Jesus

[jalnt]

Is there a difference between läuft and rennt?

[cerulean18]

Why isn't "He runs down the street" correct?

[Jigeeshu]

is 'auf' a dative preposition in the sentence?

[Levi]

In this sentence yes. Otherwise generally it's a two-way preposition: http://german.about.com/library/blcase_dat2.htm
2014.11.11

[Rbsnh]

I can't figure out when I should use "auf" and when I should use "an". Can someone clarify this for me? Thank you.

[ali_ryland2]

What would be 'he walks onto the street' then?

[Levi]

I believe that would be "Er geht auf die Straße."
2014.11.11

[mizinamo]

That's right.

[subnat]

There's movement involved. Shouldn't it be in akk? "Er läuft auf die Straße" ??

[mizinamo]

There's movement involved. Shouldn't it be in akk?

No.

The accusative is used when the noun is the destination of motion.

• Er läuft auf die Straße. = He runs onto the street. (e.g. from a house to the street)
• Er läuft auf der Straße. = He runs on the street. (The street is the location of the running but not the destination.)

[DeborahSed2]

In the previous sentence "Die Katze und der Hund laufen auf die Strasse," Duolingo translates "laufen" as "running. However, on this, the next sentence, they insists it is "walking." Arrrgh!

[mizinamo]

they insists it is "walking."

What do you mean? There are accepted translations here with both "running" and "walking".

Perhaps you made an error? What was your entire answer? Do you perhaps have a screenshot so that we can see exactly what you wrote?