15 Comments
Why is it "Det var nogle smukke handlinger" rather than "De var nogle smukke handlinger?"
In the sentence 'nogle smukke handlinger' is not the subject of the sentence but instead what we in Danish call the subject's predicate, and here the gender or number of the predicate does not necessarily influence the gender of the subject (den/det), at least when it comes to "kopulative" verbs (for instance to be="at være", to be called="at kaldes", to become="at blive" etc)
In Danish, when you describe what something is, we always use 'deT er'. In the same way 'what is it?', is always 'hvad er deT?'
no, then it would be der er, which discribes the setting or the place. What is described here is the subject, which always takes a T
Of course. Either there were some beautiful acts or it was a beautiful act
Tak. Got a bit confused with work the word "Det" expecting it to be an article. One thing that is actually quite annoying about Duolingo that I hope they address is that there's a lot of useful information you write which you can read right below the lessons on the computer but they do not exist on mobile and it feels more like a guessing game.
You only have to tap on the "flag" when you've completed a question and you'll see all the Q and A with respect to a sentence.
Or did I misunderstand you ?
A little misunderstood. Got this question wrong when I first came across it and learned why. The issue I had was with what is available on the phone version of Duolingo vs. the computer version.
The long version: I got the question wrong when I first came across the question and was happy to see someone explained it and wanted to thank them for it. If I get something wrong, I first want to understand why it is wrong before flagging the question. In this case, I saw "Det" and thought "It" (like the sentence "Det er meget store") but translating words from one language never has an exact equal. I was also referring to how in the computer version of Duolingo, when you click on some chapter (i.e. 'Basics I' first you'll see all the lessons on the top but then you scroll down and you read hints and explanations about all the lessons ( In 'Basics I' something roughly along the lines of "There is no 2nd person (you) or 3rd person (they) in Danish....") and the hints and explanations part doesn't exist in the Duolingo mobile version, at least as of yet. I could bring this up in the Discussion tab to find out.
Could it be plots instead of acts? To me this is confusing, because at other sentences 'handlinger' is 'plots' and it seems like it means the same? But maybe I miss a detail here?
"they were some beautiful acts" written above makes sense but "it was some beautiful acts" as written in the correction sounds incorrect on english and doesn't make sense - should it be "de...."?
Sorry but the English version just doesn't make sense. It just has to be "there". "There" doesn't always refer to place. There were five apples". Not "they were five apples. There was one apple. Not "it was one apple".
There 'There' has two meanings. Its first meaning is an adverb of place. It's like 'here', except further away.The book is there! (= The book is in that place.)We are talking about its second meaning today. 'There' can also be a pronoun that doesn't really have a meaning, but is used as the subject of a sentence when otherwise the sentence wouldn't have a clear subject.There's a book on the table. (= A book is on the table. / A book exists on the table.)We usually use 'there' as a dummy subject with a noun or a noun phrase and the verb 'be'. It's often used to introduce new information or say that something exists. We put what we really want to talk about after the verb.There's a coffee shop next to the station.There was a boy in the car.We can use 'there' with any tense of 'be', including 'modal verb + be'.There was an old man in the restaurant.There might be cake at the party.There's been an accident.There wouldn't have been a problem if you had called me.We can use 'there' with question tags.There'll be a lot to do, won't there?There isn't a cat in the garden, is there?
