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- "Bíonn sceitimíní air nuair a…
"Bíonn sceitimíní air nuair a théann sé go dtí an Ghearmáin."
Translation:He does be excited when he goes to Germany.
34 Comments
595
Duolingo, you cannot force me to incorporate "do be"/"does be" into my dialect of English. Other dialects of English can express the habitual present tense just fine. "He is excited when he goes to Germany" can convey a habitual sense.
385
I just realized that the way we say it is "He gets excited when he goes to Germany", and that means he habitually gets excited in that situation. I think that's a pretty natural translation, and less confusing for english speakers.
994
Does not "He gets excited when he goes to Germany" also convey the habitual present sense that using bíonn implies? Using "does be" would make all the English speakers here in Ohio give me a strange look.
Here are two articles from the Irish Times that include direct quotations of ordinary people saying "I do be" and "She does be". This construction is not often seen in written English, but it is absolutely a normal part of the vernacular for many Irish people. It is worth nothing that both of these examples reflect urban speech, not rural speech. This construction is not restricted to rural areas.
Further up the street, florist Dee Curry was parked in a loading bay making one of her many deliveries around the city: “Most of the time, I do be dreading trying to get parking,” she said.
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/look-the-place-is-empty-rise-in-parking-charges-hits-ranelagh-businesses-1.3957400She does be sobbing going home from visits and it’s horrible to be looking at your child like that. https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/health-family/parenting/the-mothers-spending-christmas-in-prison-1.3331306?mode=amp
303
"Does be" is said, but so is the gramatically correct version "is" which is used by vastly more people worldwide, and in ireland, rather than examples above which are closely linked to a particular socio-economic group. I live in Ireland, accept we have variations of saying things but this is too far from the daily reality of most English speaking Irish people to be the sole accepted answer.
If the course was trying to teach English to Irish speakers there might be a point to your objection, but the course is trying to teach Irish to English speakers, and English speakers need help to understand and reinforce the difference between tá and bíonn, a concept that does not come naturally to most English speakers.
It's one thing for English speakers who aren't from Ireland to complain that they can't understand what "does be" really means, because the concept is entirely absent from their worldview, but for an Irish person who actually comprehends the concept of "does be" and how it is used, to fall back on socio-economic snobbery as a reason for extinguishing the distinction between bíonn and tá when translating from Irish to English is, at best, unfortunate.
The computer can't tell whether someone who enters "He is excited when he goes to Germany" understands the difference between bíonn and tá, so it requires "does be" to ensure that the difference is at least acknowledged.
604
Ah sure he does be doing this and he does be doing that...I'll tell you what he doesn't be doing: learning grammar off Duolingo
267
If I am translating into English, it ought to be proper English grammar. Which "he does be" is not. If I am translating into Irish, yes, it should be Irish grammar, but that's a different thing.
267
Again, I don't expect the English translation to be that of a "dialect" of English, but standard English, which this is not. It is nice that Duo has the translation to English done by an Irish speaker, but it would also be nice to have the final translations run by a native English speaker who would definitely say he does be is not standard, as opposed to dialectical English. I'm trying to learn Irish, not a dialect of English that appears, from the comments, to be problematic for British, American and even some Irish speakers, who also agree it isn't correct
658
I'm struggling with the reason it seems like there are two ways of saying "he goes to" in the second part of the sentence. "Théann sé" and "go dtí" seems like there is redundancy by saying, "He goes" and "go to". What am I missing?
108
Another objection to 'does be'... please could we have the option of 'is' from the word choices? While I could translate the Irish no problem, it took me a while to figure out how to rearrange the words I had to express what I wanted to say.
236
What about "he is frequently excited..." or something like that to convey the present habitual? Would that be correct?
1447
In general (e.g. not in Duolingo"), could I use "is ... whenever" here instead of "does be ... when" or is the former expressed differently in Irish?
The Americans are even more confused by it than you are.
The people who have no problem with it (because it is a perfectly valid construction in their English) are the Irish people who wrote the exercise, and the Irish people (from all parts of the country, urban and rural, North, South, East and West) who either use this construction, or who encounter it being used by other Irish people.