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- "Wij fietsen bijna nooit."
19 Comments
It strictly accepts "We hardly bike". I wrote "We rarely bike" and got it wrong... Curious if it accepts "We almost never bike".
The english verb is 'cycle' , which it did not accept. People would generally say 'I cycled to work', i've never heard anyone say 'I biked to work'.
Biked is perfectly normal American unless you grew up in Minneapolis. It definitely looks more of a serious activity than going for a bike ride. Cycled would be much considered formal in AE while BE and usually the internationals learn the verb by cycling. I would rather use cycle for climate oscillations or economic ebb and flows.
I believe the word seldom is an apt translation for bijna nooit, since it means not often
Just so I understand the word order, is this structured: Pronoun, manner, , additional verb, negation?
Ride a bicycle. It's a general statement that covers all bicycles, not just one bicycle.
'We almost never bike' could also mean that we don't ever ride a motorcycle. It's not clear from the sentence that it's about bicycles.
Not sure how that is related to your first comment. Anyway, this is a Dutch to English sentence and fietsen only applies to bicycles and to bike is also used for riding a bicycle (https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/bike).
I agree that 'we almost never bike' is an accurate translation for 'wij fietsen bijna nooit'. However, 'we almost never bike' is not necessarily an accurate translation of 'wij fietsen bijna nooit'.
As can be read in the link you provided 'Danny bikes to the park and back every day' means 'Ride a bicycle or motorcycle.'
According to this link (https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/bicycle) 'we almost never bicycle' could be an accurate translation also.
Edited (since i can't reply to your reply anymore). From Dutch to English: ‘wij fietsen bijna nooit’ is an accurate translation for ‘we almost never bike’. According to your link, fietsen is an accurate translation of the verb ‘to bike’.
From English to Dutch: ‘we almost never bike’ is not necessarily the most sound translation of ‘wij fietsen bijna nooit’ since it’s not clear whether it’s used to indicate a bike or motorcyle. I stand correct, I should have said ‘not necessarily the most sound’ instead of ‘not necessarily an accurate translation’.
We almost never bicycle is accepted.
You may want to read what you said again, because first you say it's an accurate translation, and then you say it is not necessarily an accurate translation.
Though, we almost never bike is perfectly fine.
Note that verb is marked as informal. It is not standard English. "to bike ride", yes, "to bicycle", yes, "to ride a bike", yes, "to cycle", yes. But not "to bike". If I was to use "bike" as a verb in everyday life, people would look at me strangely.
"we almost never bike" sounds unnatural to me, nobody would say this in english.
