"The city has a population of two million people."
Translation:La città ha una popolazione di due milioni di abitanti.
251 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
520
The following is accepted:
La città ha una popolazione di due milioni di persone.
Be careful to spell "milioni" correctly or the sentence will be rejected.
Brian, sharon, Muyil and Rrtqt take note!
When commenting on these pages about a problem, it is important to post the complete exact sentence that you wrote. Otherwise we go back and forth and cannot accurately diagnose the problem.
520
Glenis, please tell us exactly what you wrote (the full sentence). Otherwise it is impossible to guess what was or was not accepted.
Also, I would add that if DL want to teach people properly (their marketing says that their's is the best learning platform in the world - that is subjective) then they should be far more efficient in making clear the alternative words possible in a given sentence; if they are after a particular word, which would be fine but sometimes counter-productive, they certainly should not be marking wrong perfectly acceptable alternative words. And I am not saying that because of this particular question; DL do this type of thing a lot.
I agree with you. I think you have to look more at the context of the sentence. When there is more than one choice, it should not be said that it is wrong. before they updated this format, they would put a suggestion when they gave the answer. They would say you can also say it this way. Then they would put a suggestion when giving the answer. They would say, you can also say it this way, and you would know that you have alternative ways of saying things, instead of being told that it is incorrect.
225
actually it is not free if you use plus, also it has nothing to do with being free or not, if something is wrong it is wrong no matter if it is free or not.
The issue here is that the sentence that needs to be translated says people and the want it to be changed to inhabitant and those two words are different.
I know lots of people may disagree, but Malcolm has a point. I think that although DL has issues with some of their sentences, IT IS FREE, and I don't think plus advertises absolutely perfect lessons. Like most, I also get frustrated at times because of sentences like this, but I personally think that despite the errors every now and again, DL is a decent learning website. Things just aren't going to be perfect 24/7.
1173
We would never use the word "residents" for plants, and only for animals if you were talking about a cattery or dog kennels - but usually not even then. Residents usually refer to people who live somewhere - in a city, in a block of flats or whatever
I have found the best way to send an email to Duolingo. Take screenshots of both the problem and the comments here and construct a solid case why it should be changed. Best success:-)
3364
This is totally a trick question and it's unfair. In similar questions on Duolingo, if you'd checked "inhabitants" you'd have been failed, because "inhabitants" is a different word than "people" They should be more consistent!!
According to Reverso, either with or without are acceptable. See: https://mobile-dictionary.reverso.net/english-italian/a%20city%20of%20two%20million%20persons
2317
I checked people and was marked wrong. The sentence says people, not inhabitants. Tricky question.
421
Could somebody please step in and tell me why you have to say di abitanti? What's the di doing there ..? I honestly don't get this.
835
In the phrase "two cups of apples" you're counting the cups, not the apples, so it's actually the same
1374
For me, this item was problematic because I have not yet been introduced to "abitanti." I double checked my list of "words." It alphabetically lists "abbigliamento," "abiti" and "abito" but no "abitanti."
1344
It no longer accepts di persone, which i feel it should. I feel like it has phrased it exactly like that before.
Where in the Italian sentence says inhabitants, residents or citizens? It is really annoying when you are trying to learn and there is a program that confuses you. Here there is a good free page to learn Italian: https://onlineitalianclub.com/index-of-italian-listening-comprehension-exercises/
177
This is too confusing to follow and continually getting it wrong just makes me leave the lesson.
709
Splitting hairs here, but wouldn't it be 'due milioni' with an i?
My real question is not on the correctness of inhabitants or people, but on translating from English to Italian (I didn't get this as a multiple choice question). I used people and DL said the correct answer was "...di due milioni di persone". Why the 2nd DI before persone? Can anyone please explain? Grazie
709
In English we say 'two million', but Italians basically say 'two millions', so milioni (the plural of milione since there is more than 1 million).
I was afraid to mark as correct both popolazione and abitanti. Sometimes Duolingo is very exacting with terms, other times not. Maybe because we're talking about population counts in this sentence, popolazione and abitanti would be equivalent, where in another sentence having to do with housing or such the difference in the terms would be more significant. I don't know. At least Duolingo gives you multiple times to get it right. You just have to remember what you did wrong the last time. I'm not complaining about getting a lot of repetition. It could be that the stress this causes help us to learn better, eh?
1332
How can one give the right answer if the right word was missing from the options? In the first instance it was 'ha', and the second - 'cita' was missing?
trick question here!!! They ask for "people" - "persone" should be accepted!! Of course they are inhabitants, but inhabitants of what?? Rats, mice, dogs. NO, of course it is people "persone". If they want the word "abitanti", they should ask for "inhabitants" or just accept "persone" as an alternative correct response.
1544
Inhabitants is the wrong word in this context. The sentence referred to people, some of whom could be transient workers living in the city during census time.
1455
Why is this not accepted: "la città ha una popolazione di due milione persone". Abitanti are inhabitants and not given as an alternative in the hover over drop down. Inconsistency yet again
To come to the point,look people-i am one you are one that makes two so are we abitanti ? or persone? or perhaps both I hope that clears it su per tu me loro. Inhabitants? or (people)? like is what they wrote on the question-but who am I to correct the learned inhabitants that gives me,us the Italian language for free,Ho erudito qualcosa-Ho penso,why did,nt they write inhabitants-I would then find the translation too that word.I find it is not solo in the Italian speak,Italian prevaricates.We will prevail,folks ps hope you don,t mind my rant,
948
Michaelangelo! Bernini! Pavarotti! Rossi! Schillaci! Your Boys Took One Hell Of A Beating!! Ha Ha! Finally Finished This Section!
People complain about their personal translation of a word not being accepted by DL and also complain about DLs translation being too different from the Italian. It's unrealistic to expect every conceivable translation to be covered. In person teaching is the only way to cover all bases, where there's a person fluent in both Italian and your native language who can adequately answer these questions.
840
Sorry you translat people as persone before and now i translat it the same you put it abitanti.....!
553
This confused me at first. Maybe Duo changed it since your comment, but #1 has "uno" and #3 has "un".
330
What happened?! I just got to select from among 3 identical responses (yup, I checked thoroughly, letter by letter). So, I checked all 3. Right: marked wrong, with an identical (4th) correct answer popping up. Hey, Duo...???
956
That doesn't make any sense. It says people, not inhabitants. Inhabitants doesn't mean the same thing as (generic) people it means a specific set of people (they live there). The former could include living and/or working there.
2023
Finally, "la città ha una popolazione di due milioni di persone" was accepted on April 9, 2020.
684
how about cluing us in to "di abitanti" first, duolingo? throw me a drop down hint already!
1455
This topic has now been open to argument for 7 years. How much longer before Duolingo puts things in order.
".......two million people", not "inhabitants", not "citizens", not "occupants"
The various synonyms might mean the same to some people but they are not what is written in the clue.
People = persone oppure gentile inhabitants = abitini citizens = cittadini occupants = occupanti residents = residenti
1053
Agreed! It's a bit mean to insist on a word that's not mentioned in the drop-down hints. I used 'persone' but was marked wrong for accidentally adding a second 'l' in 'milione' which should have been allowed as a 'typo'.
The singular of milioni is milione. Italian nouns that end in e pluralize with an i. Examples:
lo scultore (the sculptor) becomes gli scultori (the sculptors) l'attore (the actor) becomes gli attori (the actors)
In general:
nouns that end in -o or -i become plural nouns that end in -i nouns that end in -a become plural nouns that end in -e
The articles preceding the nouns change similarly as well.
846
the question asks how many people ? Persone. Abitanti means inhabitants. Why is persone marked wrong ?
1171
"Di abitani" has not been in any lessons yet. Through etymology, I assume it means "people who live there" or some such. I said "due milioni di persone", is that not appropriate in this context?
564
The hint mention three words for 'people' and "abitanti" is not one of them. What gives?
851
Has anyone else have the issue that this is marked as incorrect even though I've put in the exact answer requested? It's impossible to finish the lesson or get credit for completing the rest of it.
743
If you wanted the Italian word for inhabitants in this sentence, why not use the word?
Can someone please help me understand the second 'di' required in this sentence? If I type the English sentence "The city has a population of two million people", context.reverso.net gives me the second 'di' in the Italian translate. But if I use the number 'one hundred', or 'nine hundred and ninety nine thousand', I don't get the second 'di'. So is it only with the number 'milioni' that the second 'di' is needed?
In statements of amounts, the "di" is typically used after indeterminate numerical terms, like in the sentence "Friends, I've got hundreds of friends" would translate to "Amici, ho centinaia di amici." (because the "hundreds" isn't a definite numerical amount).
Milioni seems kind of strange. It's a defined amount but always gets the di after it, perhaps because "milioni" is so huge that it was not traditionally treated as a definite, countable amount. Whatever specifically originated this occurrence, it is the rule that when expressing amounts of items in the millions (or billions or trillions, etc) to use the form "milioni di _".
523
la città ha una popuoazione di due milione di persone. I made a typo by missing the 'l' in popolazione so is that what's wrong or is the word persone considered wrong?
520
What answer? Can't you see how utterly pointless your comment is if you don't tell us what you wrote?