Feeling punished for speaking formally and using BrE

[kingofeggs]

One thing that has been irking me is that I feel I have to actively change my use of English in order to avoid losing hearts.

For example "the hat costs dearly" is considered a mistake whilst "the hat costs a lot" is fine. "Expensive" is understood but "dear" rarely is. This is just one example of this problem. I can understand wanting to first and foremost accommodate the more colloquial and common forms of English, but surely some more attention could be paid to more formal "proper" English interpretations? This is just the way I was taught languages at school so it's quite difficult to change.

Anyway moan over, love the site, fantastic resource otherwise :) (although I wish it were combined with video resources for each skill!)

[FrankySka]

The translations that are accepted are partly the result of which alternative translations are reported by the users. So the best thing that you can do is click underneath the translation and say "my answer should be accepted". That won't help with the heart lost for that very training session, but will make more BE translations accepted in the long term. The sentences, especially for advanced lessons, already have a couple of hundred translations each. It is very difficult to accommodate every style of speaking. Thus, if you want your specific translations to be accepted, provided they are correct, you need to put a little bit of work in yourself :)

[lilygilder]

I agree with FrankySka. If everyone takes the time for the additional click there would be more room for different ways of speaking. We can work on that all together!

[chunshek]

That's what I do with sentences in the advanced lessons in Italian -- give the team useful feedback as well!

[Jimmy_Kane]

I know it was only a specific example, but 'the hat costs dearly' doesn't actually make sense. 'The hat is dear' would be the closest phrase, or 'the hat cost me dearly', but very few people still use the word like this except a few cliché or to be dramatic - 'that will cost you dearly!' No one would use it in the day to day context of buying stuff.