"Personne ne décroche, mais il appelle quand même."
Translation:No one is picking up, but he is calling anyway.
21 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
I made the same mistake, but if it had been ils it would have sounded like "il-s -appelle" not "il-appelle", so Duo makes sense IMHO
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'picking up' is a strange phrase that is never used outside the USA. I suggest Duo should use 'answering' which is more widespread and neutral.
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What English sentence did you type with answering? Was it accepted?. If not, did you report your suggestion?
Pick up the phone means to answer the phone in American English. I like that Duo is using it because it will help me remember 'decrocher' (to answer) means to take it off the hook as in an old-fashioned wall phone and raccrocher (to hang up) is to put it on the hook.
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In English, we might talk of "picking up the phone" as an alternative to "answering the phone". It is a usage which dates back to the last century, when a telephone had a handset linked to a base unit by a cord.
"Picking up the phone" is shortened by some people to "picking up", and DL has chosen this version. It is an unfortunate choice because it causes confusion.
what do you mean by picking up? do you mean answering the phone? This is not an expression in use in the UK - we answer the phone.
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Yes for anyone learning english to visit or live in the uk it is 'answer the phone' and you should be wary of using the phrase 'pick up' it can mean making a 'casual aquaintance'.
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"No one is picking up, but he calls all the same." is not accepted. Is this not normal English? (my native language)
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I've reported 'all the same' as a variant for 'quand même'. Seems closer to the French, for one thing.
I typed "Nobody answers, but he calls just the same"; it was not accepted. Perhaps I'm misguided to think that my answer should be accepted.
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If I were using "even so", I would put it before "he is calling", but to me it would make this clumsy sentence even clumsier.
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Remember that we are learning French here. The version,"to pick up" makes sense to me because I'm old and we used the telephone with a cord. We had to pick it up to answer it; and of course it means to answer also.
Why is the translation "no one is answering, but he is still calling" not an acceptable translation?
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I would guess that DL doesn't want to confuse people. It translates encore as "still" (obviously that is a different "still" to yours).
We say answer the phone in the US. Pick up is used too but not as often.