"What a shame!"
Translation:Quelle honte !
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Yes. Why drop this alternate into a lesson that has just taught us the other phrase?!
I believe this has been incorrectly translated into English. 'Quelle honte!' actually means 'What shame!' or 'I'm so ashamed!' or 'How shameful!' rather than 'What a shame!' which is an idiomatic expression meaning something is a pity/unfortunate (the correct French expression then being 'quel dommage'). Does anybody agree?
Agreed! "What a shame" (also "What a pity") is NOT "Quelle honte".
To add to what you said: "Quelle honte !" can also be "What a disgrace!" / "The shame of it!"
[I have also seen "Quel malheur" used in the sense of "Quel dommage" ("What a shame/pity")]
I have been saying "Quelle dommage" for years with native French speakers, please correct this.
Why is quel missing from the selection ? There's only domage. My answer was "Domage" and Duo says its correct. Under discussion, Duo has it as "quel domage" !
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Because DUO wants you to choose the correct answer. And as quel dommage is not available you have to choose quelle honte. It is also to show you that there are two words for shame but this first is male and the second is female.
Except that doesn't work if you're testing out and don't have the drop-downs. Generally, I think of the drop-downs as something I use only when my memory won't do the job. My fat Collins/LeRobert gives "honte" as the translation of "shame". But it specifically lists "quel dommage!" (and only that) as the translation of "What a shame!"
To me "honte" is shame/disgrace and "dommage" is shame/pity.
Exactly this.
They can often trip me up but they remind us of other lessons we have learnt.
Yeah that's fair enough, I think I was pretty mad when I typed my comment up. Duolingo definitely said it was wrong altogether though, not just an incorrect gender.
19 years of saying "quel dommage" and suddenly it's not correct? Problem reported.
As of December 2019 many of these comments are five and six years old. The "correct" answer has changed. It now agrees with some of the comments. It's frustrating that DUO doesn't date changed translations.
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Yes, this board was confusing until I too twigged what had happened. They should at least scrap the whole exercise and start again with fresh comments when they get it wrong!
I believe the clue here is gender: dommage (m): "Quel dommage" honte (f): "Quelle honte"
I agree. We were given quel dommage as an example first and out of a context both must be accepted but mine wasn't
"Quel dommage" is accepted. "Quelle dommage" is not, and the suggestion is "Quelle honte", so the engine is apparently reacting to the gender. This may explain a lot of the confusion (and understandable frustration) in these comments.
Relieved I'm not the only one who strongly disagrees with this answer. Yet it's still not been changed.
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So, here it is seven years later and this is marked incorrect. In every other part of the lesson, it is the correct answer. How do I report something that for at least 7 years is incorrect.
Why is 'c'est dommage' marked as incorrect here when it was translated as such by Duolingo a couple of sentences previously???
In other similar questions, dommage is accepted. There is obviously a fault here and it needs to be sorted
Why hasn't DuoLingo corrected this mistake after all of the comments? Yes, "Quel dommage" is widely said to mean "what a shame." "Quel honte" means what shameful act. Come on, DuoLingo! How unresponsive can this program be?
All though these exercises we've been taught "Quel dommage", so why are we now expected to use honte ?