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- "Iuvenis otiosus psittacos no…
"Iuvenis otiosus psittacos non pulsat."
Translation:The leisurely young man does not hit the parrots.
10 Comments
As she speaks it at the moment, it sounds somewhere between the sentence as it should apparently be, and “iuvenes otiosos psittacus non pulsat”, which, given the logic of many of the sentences, seemed to be more apt here.
2488
this woman's recording is usually very misleading! in this sentence I also hear "iuvenes" instead of "iuvenis" and I only get it right after analyzing the sentence.
247
I put psittacus not psittacos and managed to get it through without comment. but she clearly does say psittacos...
I think part of their little 'game' and strategy, is to add elements of absurdity to the examples, in order to force you to (hopefully) latch onto the more abstract elements like the subjects, etc. In this case, I would say 'leisurely' checks out, in that there could definitely be a time in which an English speaker (myself included/'source: me') could describe someone as 'leisurely' for something akin to playful derision? Idk. But yeah... the parrot thing is hilarious.
EDIT: I've mentioned twice (now, today) that I might have a bit of an advantage digesting this as a learning format (the abstracts and absurdity) because 'where I come from', all the sages speak in riddles of 'foo' and 'bar' =)
I put 'the leisurely young man does not hit parrots' and it was marked successful... but that is not the same as 'the leisurely young man does not hit THE parrots'. The latter, if used without regard for context, brings up images of caricatures/portrayals of English As A Second Language-speakers a la Borat, The Count on Sesame Street, etc.
"Sir or ma'am, we think we have a young, leisurely, male, serial-swatter on the loose. We also notice you have a lot of birds in your yard, including parrots. Have you seen this man, hitting your parrots?" The officer produces a photo of a young man you know, Sebastian. You happen to know, beyond all shadows of all reasonable doubts, that Sebastian would never hit one of your parrots, much less any other creature on God's green Earth. How do you respond to the officer:
"The leisurely young man you speak of, Sebastian, does not hit the parrots...", and leave some kind of cryptic gap, begging for further explanation. Or,
"The leisure young man you speak of, Sebastian, does not hit parrots", letting your tone match your word choice, telling the officer in an inundating wall of transcendent subtext he better take his rotten investigation elsewhere, because you won't stand for it.
(?)
I rest my case.