"My teacher is teaching but I am not listening because I do not have an interest in history."

Translation: Tá mo mhúinteoir ag múineadh ach níl mé ag éisteacht mar níl suim agam sa stair.

[heleneile]

Is there a reason why it's 'sa stair' and not 'i stair'?

[galaxyrocker]

Generally abstract things have an article when discussing them as a whole.

[Julie91367]

Why is ' spéis' not considered as correct ?

[Lillian211756]

Spéis was accepted for me 03/05/2019 thankfully cause I can never remember "suim"

[raymonddix4]

What's the story with nilim and nil me. Which is acceptable. I thought both were.

[SatharnPHL]

nílim and níl mé are equivalent, and both forms should be accepted.

[BenStorch]

Is there a difference between suim an spéis?

[TangentExpress]

"Nílim" and "spéis" were not accepted.

[GillianWra]

is there a reason why suim and spéir are not interchangeable. they can both be used for interest

[raymonddix4]

Because suim and speir are two different words

[GillianWra]

yes they are and both can mean interest,but is there a specific reason why one might be used over the other. Obviously Duolingo is computer generated, but it would be helpful for an algorithim explaining why one word is accepted over another in particular sentences.

[SatharnPHL]

According to Lillian211756 above, spéis is accepted for this exercise - perhaps there was another problem with your answer?

The list of acceptable answers isn't computer generated, it is compiled by humans. Duolingo will only accept answers that are on that list. It can spot typos, but it will not accept a synonym for an individual word - the whole sentence must be included in the database. So to accept all variations of nílim/níl mé and suim/spéis requires 4 database entries. Allow for teagasc instead of múineadh and you need 8 entries. Allow for toisc or de bhrí instead of mar and you potentially double that again.