"Wir essen Kartoffeln."
Translation:We are eating potatoes.
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But everything is sold in a cart; or rather, nothing is really sold in a cart
I was really trying to figure out what a lung disease and leraning a language had to do with each other
By the way I don't think "leraning" is a word. I think you mean learning. :) henrymc1 is not the only person who makes mistakes, it happens to the best of us.
Brian Wilson actually used a pun in his song Vege-Tables that went "Cart off and (Kartoffeln) sell my vegetables", if that helps anyone remember! :)
The Kar can remind you of car-rot ,which is grown underground. Now guess which is the most famous underground grown vegetable. It's POTATOES!
Huh? How is "we're eating potatoes" counted as a typo? What else would be the point of offering a "'re" tile? It's not like there could be any different German translation for "We are eating potatoes" than for "We're eating potatoes" since there is no way to abbreviate the verb in German here.
That's what I was thinking! The word "we're" is a contraction for "we are". Duolingo clearly didn't do grammar lessons.
why is it sound like the singular word "Kartoffel"? It's sound like they aren't saying the "n" in the end of the plural word
When ordering fries/french fries, "kann ich bitte Pommes haben" is how most Germans would say it
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Google translate wants to translate "Fritten" from Luxembourgish, not from German. I can understand that they say "Fritten" in Luxembourg, because Belgium is their neighbour: "friet".
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That's right, "Fritten" is used close to the Belgian border, in the Rhineland, the Sauerland, and Saarland, for example.
How come "Wir sind" is not used if the english translation is "We are"?
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Why is there a need for a continuous form in English? This form does not exist in German. "Wir essen" means both "we eat" and "we are eating".
Why? Simply because they can. German "thinks" it needs a bazillion of verb forms for both subject agreement and tense, when, say, Chinese manages just fine without. We also think we need a plural, which speakers of Japanese don't have and don't miss (because if they did miss it, they'd long since have developed or borrowed it). Asking "why do they need it" doesn't really help you in language learning, and I'd go so far as to say that it probably even hinders embracing the target language. Just enjoy the fact that you just learned a new way to think, and that this or that language has opened up new categories to you, whether they be tenses you didn't know, noun classes, new phonemes, or just a neat new word. :)
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Why is there a need for a continuous form in English? was more or less a rhetorical question. Evan wondered how it is possible that a German sentence, which appears to be in the present simple, has been translated into the English present continuous. Every language has its own characteristics and peculiarities. And that is the fun of learning another language!
I dont think its because of a need so much as English being a chaotic mishmash of languages. Like a quilt made from many different types of fabric!
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I meant that German and other languages manage fine without a present continuous. One understands whether something happens now or is a habit or fact without such a "to be + verb-ing" construction, or says it in a different way.
You really can't. Unless you were given "wir essen gerade Kartoffeln" (or dialectal "wir sind am Essen"), German simply doesn't do a present continuous. This is a bit of an ongoing puzzle to me since Duolingo switched from mandatory "type in the translation" to "click on the matching tiles". Basically before I start on any given exercise, I first locate the verb and check if it is in the -ing form so I know what kind of sentence I have to construct. It seems to me the choice of the English translation is quite arbitrary; I haven't spotted any system behind when it's simple present and when it's continuous.
Ah, but eating Kartoffeln is the most German thing! The rest of the world may think we're all about the Bratwurst, but potatoes are quite synonymous with German-ness. Have a look at #Kartoffel on Twitter.
It must mean something that this sentence is followed by " the piags eat potatoes ".
Is there an way to tell how a word will end when its plural. Like how can you tell if it ends with an 'e' 'en' or 'n'? Or is it just like the gender of words and it has no rhyme or reason?
Has anyone noticed the pronunciation is the same as the singular Kartoffel, or is it just me?
On second thought though. I think the absence of "ein" or "die" could indicate it should be plural. "We are eating potato" is wrong and should be "We are eating potatoes"
Same. Wondering how we were supposed to tell the difference. I replayed the audio several times just to be sure and all i hear was "Wir essen kartoffel". And there's no additional context to tell.
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You added an article that is not in the German sentence. It said "wir essen Kartoffeln" not "wir essen die Kartoffeln".
