"You put the letter in an envelope and you sent the letter."
Translation:Chuir sibh an litir i gclúdach litreach agus sheol sibh an litir.
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I do not understand how this variation can be correct:
"Chuir tú an litir i gclúdach litreach agus sheol sibh an litir."
It mixes the pronouns for "you"... That seems wrong, unless the speaker is indeed directing the clauses at two different subjects.
Well, without context, you can't tell that the speaker isn't directing it to two different subjects. I mean, I can see a situation where you can use both. Really, unless we have context, we can't know for sure.
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I really hate English for being so imprecise when it comes to words like that. However, for me the sentence only makes sense with one type of you. Especially as the context clearly indicates a single action, or how should "'yous' sent the letter" you (on your own) have put in an envelope? Each taking one end of the envelope?
Well, one person could have put it in the envelope, and then multiple people (of another group) gone to send it. In my dialect, it'd be like this:
[to one person] You put the letter in the envelope [turning to another group of people] and y'all sent the letter.
It'd work even better with a rising intonation and as a question, but can be said as a statement.
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In such a case, where the "you" has two different references, an English speaker would naturally use sentence stress to emphasise the difference eg "You put... and you sent...".
I would also see it accompanied by some gestures indicating who was being referred to in each case.
In written form, some kind of textual cue (underlining, italics) could be used.
Now, in the Irish, although Duolingo seems to avoid these forms, would this not be a case where the emphatic pronoun forms ("tusa" and "sibhse") would be appropriate?
Or, even fronting eg "Is tusa a chuir..."?
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2015/12/13
This time round, the correct options presented where the "tú...tú" and "sibh...sibh" versions ie no mixed pronouns.
Maybe they've taken note of the comments/reports!
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So one variant I got to this question was 'Chuir sibh an litir i gclúdach litreach is sheol tú an litir.'
I didn't select it because I (correctly) guessed that it would be considered wrong. Yet isn't 'is' sometimes used as a contraction of 'agus'? Shouldn't this form also be correct?
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I think that if you pass it to the third person you'll see it better: 'He puts the letter in an envelope and they send the letter'. It does not present any problem to me.
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Does 'chuir mé an litir chun bealaigh' or 'chuir mé an litir chun siúil' not also mean "i sent the letter" ?
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The former has that meaning. The latter would be more “I started off the letter”.
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I pondered on this before answering, but decided they couldn't really mix their pronouns as blatantly as that - we couldn't possibly know who was being addressed - however, it seems they used that illogical option just to catch us out.
