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I have had the answer "The problem is in study" marked correct, but I haven't the foggiest (idea) what it means - in either language.
that means: "the problem is: studies" or "People are looking into the problem"
The correct answer now is "The problem is under study." That's good English, so it's a useful idiom to know.
Exactly. We have idioms to learn, so this may be accepted as an idiom in favor of good English.
Kinda depends on context but more accurate would be, the problem is being studied. Or "the problem is:study."
That's a better answer.
(Crivens, a 300+ day streak! I'd give you a Lingot for dedication, but you've probably earnt a million already!)
Haha, crivens, that's the exclamation of the Wee free men by Pratchett! I checked with a Scotsman: not known.
The problem is being investigated. The problem is being looked into. The problem is being addressed (although this implies a solution is being worked on). I think all of these are better ways to say this in English :)
That's portuguese. Basically, you have to train your mind to think differently. For example, the phrase "Não dá" translated means "It doesn't give", but essentially means "It doesn't work". In context of plans and things like that. For example: Lucas:"Vamos sair as 9 horas?", Tiago:"Não dá, mano. Tenho que trabalhar". There are a lot of phrases that once you understand the context, your brain will start to think in that manner. I portuglês all the time by accident. And people just look at me like "what?".
When i first learned (somewhere else) that problemA was masculine I thought "hmm, that's a problem, 'o' for an 'a' word" and that helps me remember. :-)
Not just -ema. There are a lot of Greek neuter nouns ending in -ma with plural in -mata that have come into modern European languages. In Romance languages they look like feminine nouns, but they often kept their non-feminine gender identification. In these languages, as in English, they form adjetive stems with -t-, as in drama-dramatic, dogma-dogmatic; English sometimes has kept the original Greek singular and plural: stigma (pl stigmata) or stoma (pl. stomata). Most often, the -a dropped off or followed French with -e, but still has -at- stem for adjectives: theme, emblem, problem, or scheme form derivations in -at- (dogmatist, problematic). So in French, for example, drame, problème, and thème are masculine. Much the same pattern persists in Spanish and Italian, and I guess Portuguese.
Couldn’t this be also “the problem is under study” or “the problem is being studied”?
"Under study" is a perfectly good phrase, rather formal. If you Google the exact phrase you find a couple of hundred thousand contexts.
This says there is a problem with the substitute actor for an actor who gets sick in a play... I assume it should be the problem is to study
