33 Comments
I didn't get any audio for this sentence. Maybe they are changing it, but I doubt it.
So, this comment is based on a bit of guessing. ;)
From the few sentences that had audio, I can tell you that the speaker pronounces many short vowels long and some long vowels short. Maybe the stress was incorrect too as it directly depends on the correct length of the a in Stephanus.
Those were likely mistakes that would be quite major. There may have been some smaller mistakes too.
493
Stephanus ‧ ‧ From Ancient Greek Στέφανος (Stéphanos), "crown" ‧ ‧ From στέφανος (stéphanos, “crown”). ‧ ‧ From στέφω (stéphō, “I encircle”). ‧ ‧ From Proto-Indo-European *stegʷʰ- ‧ to enlace
(Classical) IPA(key): /ˈste.pʰa.nus/, [ˈstɛ.pʰa.nʊs]
(Ecclesiastical) IPA(key): /ˈste.fa.nus/, [ˈsteː.fa.nus]
- 24
That'll teach me to be too clever - I thought we were translating names too...I called him Steven...or should that have been Stephen?!
The correct answer was Stephanus ;o)
They should translate the names, as it's always translated in the Latin textbooks, nobody on Earth is called Stephanus nowadays I guess, but we have to translate our names to speak Latin, so why not in the other way?
So i know it's not listed in the answers but could it also be translated as "Stephanus is studying and writing."?
Yes, there's no present progressive in Latin so both translations are acceptable.
Think there's a bug here. I entered "Stephanus studies and writes" and it came back and said that's incorrect, and the correct answer is "Stephanus studies and writes". Well - that's what I typed! I can't report it, because none of the categories are relevant - it's not an incorrect sentence, an audio bug or any of the available choices.
- 2039
If you accidentally had some extra spaces, that could account for it. And that's a coding oversight for the devs to fix, not anything the course contributors can address.
You can report it here:
https://support.duolingo.com/hc/en-us/sections/200864570-Reporting-Issues
- 2039
Explained on this page before:
From the Tips and Notes:
Translation of Names
A little convention: we will not accept translations of names as alternatives in this course. Marcus's name is Marcus, not Mark, and Stephanus is not Stephen or Steven.
https://www.duolingo.com/skill/la/Introduction/tips-and-notes
Tip: Add a the Latin language to your phone, and activate this keyboard when you work on Duolingo from your phone.
https://play.google.com/store/search?q=latine%20keyboard&c=apps&hl=en_US
Personally, I use a keyboard app, in which you can download additional keyboards as plugin, so I can activate and deactivate as many keyboards I need to work on my languages lessons.
Stephan, Steven, and other translated names should NOT come back as incorrect.
- 2039
From the Tips and Notes:
Translation of Names
A little convention: we will not accept translations of names as alternatives in this course. Marcus's name is Marcus, not Mark, and Stephanus is not Stephen or Steven.
https://www.duolingo.com/skill/la/Introduction/tips-and-notes
I think you should be allowed to translate the names somewhat because Latin users have regularly put endings on non-Latin names like -us. I think you should be allowed to leave the ending when the name exists in the language without -us.
If I were to translate this sentence to German, I would write Stephan lernt und schreibt. After all, when I would translate this sentence into Latin, I would pretty much have to put -us at the end of Stephan.
- 155
In this case, they didn't add an ending since this name comes from the Greek Stephanos (Στέφανος). They only adapted the Greek ending to their language.
Here it's declinated: http://www.dicolatin.com/XY/LAK/0/STEPHANI/index.htm
The person's name is the last table "STEPHANUS, I, m"
The first one "STEPHANIUM, II, n" is for "stephanium" = little crown.
- 155
I can only speculate as to why, but it says in the tips and notes to the introduction specifically not to translate names. Since this has not been the case in the other courses I have seen here, I wonder if it is to keep us aware, at all times if possible ;), of the case endings and declensions of the names. Like, "don't look at it as some ancient form of Steven, notice the -us!" Would that make sense?
ETA: Semeltin's argument is perfectly valid of course, but maybe its reasoning is one step too advanced. :)
I think it might have to do with different declensions. I bet that when there is a sentence like "Stephani florem davi", there will be people translating it as "I gave Stephani a flower", instead of "I gave a flower to Stephanus". If they used "Steven" instead ("I gave Steven a flower" would be correct if translating names was accepted), the failure to notice the declension would not be caught.
STUDET is a mistake. It should be STUDIT because that verb belongs to the 4th conjugation.
Thank you. I really thought it was a mistake, and I should have checked before posting my message. Sorry, errare humanum est...
