25 Comments
They accept "I do not know what hour is it" (which is incorrect), but say yours is wrong. Someone really needs to fix it.
Nothing, so report it if they didn't accept it. It's a little stilted in English, but it's acceptable, and it's only more faithful to the Portuguese.
How would one translate "I don't know the hours" (talking about working hours or opening hours of a store)?
It helps me to translate as literally as possible and it can be kind of fun, just to see how very different syntax can be between languages: "I no know what hours they are."
It should be: "I don't know what time it is" (I'm a native English speaker, trust me haha)
Because that's a question (what is) not an answer. "I don't know what the time is." is also correct.
What is the time - qual é o tempo. This form is wrong because the sentence is not like that, the sentence is "what time it is" "que hora é". Sorry for my mistakes I am a Brazilian still learning English.
Is there a difference between saying, "I don't know" rather than "I do not know"? I responded with "I don't know" and it said that another correct solution would be "I DO NOT know what time it is."
"Don't" is just a contraction (meaning short for) "do not". When speaking to people, the use of the longer "do not" explicitly states the impossibility.
Regarding this sentence: I don't know what time it is, but I might check my watch (or cellphone these days) I do not know what time it is, and I have no means of checking it
Someone gave you a down vote. Probably because there really is no difference. I always say "I don't know what time it is" because it's easier to say. If I would say "I do not know what time it is", it would sound more emphatic, particularly if I put the emphasis on "not", which one can't do with the contraction. But as different people use language differently, this is just my opinion and may not apply to others.
Yeah, that difference doesn't exist in English.
In formal writing you don't use contractions, so they have to mean exactly the same thing.
In informal speech, however, you might hear someone use the "do not" for emphasis.
Duolingo's automatic rules for contractions were a little to eager here, I guess!
Why "I do not know what time is" is incorrect? Subject is time, why should I put "it", isn't that unnecessary? A native speaker could help here
If you say ‘I do not know what time is.’, then you are expressing your ignorance in a philosophical discussion about the nature of time. What is time? How is the future different from the past? Why are we inexorably drawn into the future, and can this be changed? The top Google hit for ‘What is time’ (from where I am) is http://www.timephysics.com/ which discusses these big-picture issues.
If you say ‘I do not know what the time is.’ or ‘I do not know what time it is.’, then you simply don't know the hour of the day. This is not a deep philosophical question, but just an every-day matter. Is it 4:00 yet, or not? The top Google hit for ‘What is the time’ is http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/, and the top hit for ‘What time is it’ is http://time.is/. Both of these are just clocks.
(If you say ‘I do not know what the time it is.’, then you're not saying anything correctly; that's just bad grammar.)
