85 Comments
1128
I have difficulty understanding her last words it sounded like nella to me
Consistently, I have heard "nel" pronounced as "nella". Is this an error in the audio?
- 176
I hear the same thing. She adds a definite 'a' sound to nel. I have learned the hard way not to trust her pronunciation.
- 441
I listened to it like 10 times and I honestly can't hear any Italian 'a' sound after nel.
BTW: she? I hear a male voice. What system are you using?
I don't put sugar in the tea. THE tea, the tea of gods. The ultimate one...
Is it just a bad translation of the Italian sentence? ( that italians just always use a definite article here) or is it just a weird duolingo sentence where the tea sounds as strange in italians as in English.
- 485
You. Cannot. Translate. Word. For. Word. From. Italian. To. English. Or. Vice. Versa. I'm sure you know gosh darn well by now that in Italian, they often use definite articles where in English we would not, such as when speaking in generalities. It's "nel tè," never "in tè." You just have to memorize it and quit trying to apply English rules.
- 342
they are teaching grammar including the use of articles so it expects the translation to exactly match even if that is not how you would normally do it. once you have learned the basics you can use it however you want. I don't put sugar in the tea (only in the coffee).
I understand that this obviously translates as 'I do not put sugar in the tea' . However, why is 'i am not putting sugar in the tea' incorrect please? I thought the present simple could be used as present continuous in Italian?! Many thanks.
- 441
In what situation would you use "I am not putting sugar in the tea"? Wouldn't that be the answer to the question: "are you putting sugar in the tea?"? But then Italian has also a present progressive form ("sto mettendo") which hasn't been introduced, yet. If the sentence is using the simple present, then it's more of a question of habit, a repeated action, and you would use the simple present in English too: "I (usually) don't put sugar in the tea" :-)
"I do not put sugar in tea" is more accurate. Those who don't answer, "I do not put sugar in THE tea" shouldn't be marked wrong.
It will be marked wrong because italian uses articles for eeeeeeeverything (sorry for the emphasis. The translation ensures that you recognize there is an article there.
My suggestion : to a question "are you putting sugar in the tea ?" , I will reply "No, non gliene metto !" . What you guys think ? PS I agree that duolingo english translator most like is not an english one ! Some time I get very strange sentences !
- 342
no translator in these programs is actually a translator. It has a data base of a large number of translations of possible grammatical structures and uses these to predict a translation based on probability (how it is usually translated)--your fun fact for the day.
- 626
No it doesn't. The translations are all added manually by the course team.
Hugh, I translated this as ".... in my tea" and it was accepted. I have come across this structure before, where possession is implied. Do you have any insights for me? Grazie in anticipo!
- 441
That's correct. For each word in a sentence a range of possible translations is given. Duolingo will accept one of the words programmed and will refuse all others.
- 342
I am a huge fan of duo lingo (variety, maintained interest and exposure are more impotent that a very limited content of uncontroversial material). You are saying a team has taken the time to manually add strange, stilted, unnatural and inaccurate sentences and translations that fairly regularly are not as good as the product of predictive databases like google. You are not trying to be pointlessly mean to them, i hope.
- 626
No, I'm trying to be accurate.
The team has done their best to get these questions right. There are a lot of sentences in the course, and they've got 99.5% of them right, but a few mistakes have slipped through the net.
The course team are working through the reported errors, but there's an awful lot of work to do, and there are only three of them, and they're all volunteers who I assume have day jobs.
Is it correct to say "il zucchero" as well as just "zucchero"? Does including the "il" change the meaning somehow?
No it is not correct to say "il zucchero ". One of the grammar's rules is that when a "male" subject start with "z" (like "zucchero") it requires the article "LO" (not "IL")
- 1069
By the ending of the verb. Other tenses have different endings for the verbs.
For the sake of meaning, that is correct. For the sake of learning Italian, it is not correct, because the "non" is with the verb ("not put") rather that with the sugar.
it gets me every time - i did not put sugar in the tea - can someone tell me why
- 441
the Italian sentence is in the present form. 'I did not put sugar in the tea' is in the past form.
Is «metto» irregular the way «mettre» is in French? I mean, they do both have Latin origin
- 441
mettere is regular in the present form:
(io) metto
(tu) metti
(lui/lei) mette
(noi) mettiamo
(voi) mettete
(essi/esse) mettono
"Mettere" is regular in the present form, but it's irregular in the 'passato remoto' (one of the four indicative past forms): io MISI / tu METTESTI / lui-lei MISE / noi METTEMMO / voi METTESTE / loro MISERO
In wich case do you use io ? Because in other sentence they left out the io part.
There was no "the" option for me to pick, so it was automatically wrong.
- 1069
Did you see a "my" option? I imagine it was there, because my answer was accepted: "I do not put sugar in my tea"
If it is translated literally, why do they form questions correctly? (Do they, Do you etc. ?)
I put "I don't take sugar in tea", which is what we would say in the U.K. This was "corrected" to "I don't take sugar with tea" (despite "nel" meaning "in"). This and the sentence above both seem poor English.
- 10
I got this wrong before, with "in the tea". Duo corrected as: "with tea". Now it says "in"...Which is it?
It is more correct in englush to say take sugar instead of put sugar in tea
I do not add sugar in the tea. What is the difference, add seems more suitable in English , please comment?
- 1069
You can't. But usually sentences are presented to you many times over, so you can get it right the next time.
- 626
Absolutely correct in Britain, but it means a different thing.
This sentence is talking about putting sugar in tea, rather than taking sugar, so it means a different thing. It might be the manager of a cafe answering a question from a customer, for example.
i mean seriously i am supposed to say it in italian it did not work so i said it in english and it worked weird eh?
"I do not take sugar with tea" should be correct here, it is actually used more than "in" tea.
