"The old lady is wearing a nice dress."
Translation:Den gamla damen har en fin klänning på sig.
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So, "an old lady" would be "en gammal dam", the indefinite form, and "gamla" is used in the definite and/or plual forms (the lady/ladies)?
lady means dam, so since the hint is on the word dam, that's how it will have to be.
How do you differentiate between "gammal" and "äldre"? I have heard that it is rude to refer to old people as gammal, and that "äldre" would be more polite. In this case, it is not allowed. Is that because we are translating "old" literally?
In this case, it's more that äldre doesn't work that well attributively with the determinate form. Den äldre damen har på sig en klänning – I would interpret that as literally comparative (she is older than some other person previously mentioned).
About the general difference between gammal and äldre, that's a bit complex and I hope someone else will step in and provide an explanation of that, I just wanted to weigh in on this specific sentence.
Den gamla kvinnen har på sig en fin klänning.
Why did Duolingo mark this as wrong? No explanation given. In the hints both dam and kvinna were listed as an acceptable translation for lady. In previous exercises the object was accepted both when placed between 'har' and 'på sig' AND when placed at the end of the sentence.
Also Duo stated that the correct answer was 'Den gamla damen har en fin klänning på sig.'
but the answer given in the discusion is *Den gamla damen har på sig en fin klänning.'
which seems to imply that Dou is objecting to my using kvinnen even though kvinna is the first suggestion given. HELP!
The definite form would be "kvinnan" instead of "kvinnen" as you wrote. Spontaneously, "har en fin klänning på sig" sounds better to me than the other option, but that might just be personal preference.
It may sound better but Duolingo gave both answers as correct, one in the answer to the lesson and the other given above.
Re: Kvinnen instead of the correct kvinnan: You are correct in that I mistyped/misspelled the word (it was late and I'm not sure which --- I am more apt to make a spelling error when I am 'sure' of the answer and get careless (I do the same in my native English). However, when one makes a spelling mistake Duolingo underlines the error. That did not happen here. DL just stated that the correct answer was 'damen' so my question still stands: Is kvinnan an acceptable answer and if not why not?
Tack.
