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- Topic: Spanish >
- "La justicia es cara."
55 Comments
923
not only that, the whole judicial system and procedure to make certain that the right thing is done and all the rights respected, chance of appeal etc is indeed expensive. Like democracy and elections.
Yeah, I got cute and wrote the same thing, the idiomatic American way of expressing this ... and it's still marked wrong.
I have not been able to find an English dictionary, from Webster, American Heritage, Oxford and Google, which does not define dear as meaning "expensive." Since word itself means "expensive" in UK, and US, it is not idiomatic and Duo is simply wrong.
- 1192
It is rather archaic, except in one or two phrases like this, but, yes, it should be accepted.
See this dictionary :http://www.spanishdict.com/translate/caro
"Justice is dear" is entirely appropriate. Also, "is dearly won" is not a correct translation, but is another way we might express the concept.
DL tends to take known phrases and then translate them into Spanish. "cara" may have been the best translation of "dear." And not vice versa.
I almost wrote that, then realized that DL would mark it wrong. I believe it is an old, yet once common phrase-- I don't know why that is what first came into my mind.
A month after my previous post, DL is still wrong and has not corrected the error.
La cara es cara = the face is expensive..... Any other word for expensive that's not 'face-like'?
I keep confusing cara with another word. Or else I'm confusing cara=expensive with cara=face. Whatever it is, I'm clearly confused. :-0
- 865
In Australian English at least, 'The Justice' would never be used, unless talking about a Justice of a court in the US :p
- 1192
It could be taken to mean that justice is costly, because, at least in Western democracies, it requires a court system, police investigations, etc.
That does makes sense in the matter of procedures. Most people here avoid court cases purely because of the costs involved and sometimes get away with punishment as a result.
But Duolingo lists both translations for la justicia when you click on the word....
Cost is more like an expense, not expensive. The closest translation to 'cara' in this case would be 'costly'. So 'justice is costly, 'justice has a high cost' or 'justice comes at a high cost' would all make more sense in English but also are completely different sentences. I'm not a native English speaker btw, so any English speakers can correct me if I'm wrong.
- 1192
"Cara" means face as a noun, but is the feminine form of "expensive" as an adjective (see http://www.politico.com/story/2007/09/on-sept-25-1959-khrushchev-capped-a-visit-to-the-us-005980).
Is it correct "the justice" instead of just "justice"? It is marked right but I am not sure
I'm not a native English speaker but normally you would say 'justice' without 'the' if you are talking about the concept. Like how you would say 'love' and not 'the love' if you were talking about the concept of love.
- 1192
Spanish tends to use definite articles in front of abstract nouns, like "justice." English tends not to.
Justice might be precious or valuable but "expensive" can be taken as requiring bribery - a very poor concept
