"Trois allers-retours pour Paris, s'il vous plaît."
Translation:Three round-trip tickets for Paris, please.
21 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
In American English, they are called round-trip tickets. I never heard the phrase "returns" for a round-trip ticket, but I looked it up, and that is how it's said in British English.
Agreed. I hope this gets fed through to the Duo team. These discussions don't always get read.
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People who are criticising the British English speakers in these comments should realise we don't object to the Americans calling a return ticket a round trip ticket, but simply that our way should be accepted as an answer too. Its hard enough learning a language without getting a fail for using English wrong. Particularly when it is not.
British usage absolutely should be accepted as a variant. And American slang should not be the primary translation. (I'm thinking of translating Je m'en vais as "I'm taking off" when it means "I'm leaving," but there are other instances of this.)
But throughout these pages there are Brits complaining that American usage is wrong or substandard. The lead comment in on this very page claims that "Three returns" is much better English. That implies that standard American usage "round-trip" is substandard. Elsewhere, British users rail that "gotten" isn't English at all, unaware that it was once common in Britain, though it is now obsolete, and that it is still common in the U.S. In that case, "got" should be the primary variant, since it is also acceptable in the U.S., and "gotten" should be accepted. But that's not the same thing as calling us Americans hillbillies. (Yes, that was done. More than once.)
I think we could use a bit more humility and tolerance on both sides of the Atlantic.
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As a Brit I agree. There is no "better" English, other than when they truly get it wrong for everyone! A recent example was "attache le chien". Everyone agreed that instead of the given "tie the dog", with nothing else mitigating the harshness of the phrase, it should be "tie up the dog". Though most of us, all around the world, felt that to be an uncomfortable thing to say in the least.
I've heard Americans say "put the dog up" - on TV animal programmes - and whereas it's a bit weird to me, it is self-explanatory and sounds nicer than tying, up or otherwise! We'd more likely say "put the dog away" or "put him in" (usually meaning get him inside the house before he causes any - more - trouble! With a perpetual escape artist in my house, it gets said a lot lol!)
DL needs to be cautious in its use of idiomatic expressions. They do sometimes use them, and they are "so American" for want of a better phrase, they can be hard to understand. Had I not spent years editing & proofreading American writers, and having them reciprocate, I wouldn't know half the words and phrases that I do! When there are obvious better (i.e. more easily understood) phrases used on either one side of the pond or both, they should use them rather than something overly colloquial. They have improved in some areas, but not all.
To make things right, they should always run any English phrases past "global" volunteers (I would happily do it) before adding them to the list. Make sure each one has been checked off/"corrected" (given a common alternative) by an American, Canadian, W Indians (different islands might need different phrases), a Brit, Aussie, Kiwi & S African. If there are people from other countries where English is commonly spoken that I have missed, I apologize, it's ridiculously early at the moment and of course you should be included.
The trick would be for each to write the sentence in the sort of English you're taught at school - no slang (or swearing, my Aussie friends lol ;)), stick to the most grammatically correct, and use the most neutral vocabulary possible. That way they could use US English as the main one, but they'd have a list of alternatives ready to be accepted, whilst probably not confusing so many people to start with. Yes, it would be a bit more work for them initially, but they'd get far fewer complaints!
If anyone does want to complain, use the flag system, don't wait for them to read these posts - they don't - or for someone else to do it. It'll just take longer to get it fixed.
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Thanks Mandy for a succinct discourse on the varieties of English language issues. Although you forgot to include Ireland as an anglophone country, we wouldn't expect Duo to know or include Hiberno-English.
Agree with previous comments. In UK 'round trip' commonly means a tour of various places, and then returning to base, whether by train, car or on foot.
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This whole BrE/AmE question is not only about you, native speakers. There are a whole lot of people here who use English as a foreign language in order to learn a second foreign language -well, French in this case. So, many of us (at least here in Europe) acquired English from various British English textbooks, meaning we mostly know the BrE words and expressions to describe things. I've spoken/used English for more than 25 years, but 'round trip' was new to me - it's a 'return ticket' :)
All in all, DL should also take into consideration all those people who are working with two foreign languages here, and keep things simple :)
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That's interesting. I'm an American. When I was a student years ago, I learned French and other languages from British textbooks. That's what was available for school districts to purchase at that time. Unlike a lot of the British learners here, it never bothered me to learn in a slightly different dialect.
+1 a round trip could mean something completely different (eg like an excursion with more than one point of call) to a return and the context here is definitely for a return ticket.
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That would be an unusual way of saying it in the UK. Where would that be the usual way of expressing the request?
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In Australia we'd probably buy from a machine but the expression would be "return tickets"- rejected and reported
