Aha! Thanks for clarifying. Duolingo’s weakness is pushing one term - and punishing failure to comply with that.
6 Likes
Paßt scho’.
1 Like
I agree there isn’t really a difference in usage. Specifically though “Bauch” is belly whereas “Magen” is stomach.
It’s not the same as the difference between tummy-ache and stomachache though. Both German words are perfectly grownup words.
Nor are Bauchschmerzen anything like bellyaching despite what some online translation tools will tell you.
3 Likes
God damnit, Duolingo.
The hint even says it’s valid.
Yes, there’s a semantic difference. “Game” as “ゲーム” is usually used to mean “video game” while “game” as “試合” is more like a “sports match”, but for my answer to be marked wrong seems really nitpicky. It feels especially dickish that both words were in the word bank.
This one also seems a bit nitpicky, but I am not 100% sure. I’m assuming that leaving out the いる makes it a past-tense statement when it specifically wants present tense? Does it really change the meaning in any sort of meaningful way, though? (Hell, the English version mixes tenses already.)
3 Likes
Actually, 増えて on its own is like a participle in English, so it is not treated as a verb unless you are using it as the imperative form.
The いる is necessary to make it a complete sentence, functioning like the “has been” in the English sentence. That’s right, there is no difference between present continuous and present perfect continuous in Japanese.
5 Likes
It’s stuff like that made me give up on Duolingo. I was trying to use it to get a hang of the cases in German. But it’s pretty tedious to get marked wrong for these kind minor errors.
1 Like
In this video, a Japanese language teacher asks herself how to speak some verbs and words in Japanese. She then starts the list:
to write
to design
to scratch
tracings
angle
imaginary/fictional
Then she asks herself to translate the sentence: If you draw imaginary lines with each angle written, you can draw detailed lines. As a former student of this language, I was baffled.
1 Like
I’m just about to book a trip to Finland in August. I kinda like to not be a total monoglot type. Any suggestions on an online thing to try casually so I can buy train tickets and the like? I have done a few hours of Duolingo but they have been refreshers in languages I’m a bit better at than those few hours, like I’ve been there before so I have a background. It always seemed oddly obsessed with animals you won’t ever talk about…
4 Likes
I have found that most travel websites have an EN option, especially for countries with unique languages not used by other countries. Seems funny to call English the ‘lingua franca’, but there it is.
4 Likes
Ah yes, describing English as a universal language, using a term borrowed from Italian which etymologically means “French”.
9 Likes
Don’t know but usually if you speak with an accent Finns will anwser you in English.
This might be region locked:
From a human? Finding a human selling VR tickets ain’t easy. I think there’s one stations in Helsinki that has humans selling them and maybe in Tampere. Oh you can buy them from R-Kioski. I usually just buy them from the app so I didn’t remember that…
That’s where you buy your tickets.
BTW if you are in the Helsinki region buy one of these:
6 Likes
A sort of French, perhaps more related to one of the suppressed dialects such as Occitan than to standard Parisian French. As it wasn’t really a written language, hypotheses have proliferated.
6 Likes
Foreign tourist at the ticket office: Two to Tolouse.
Guy behind the counter: Täterätätä!
7 Likes
6 Likes
That was so cute! And they spoke clearly enough that even someone as rusty as I am could keep up.
3 Likes
“I thought this said ‘Inumiya Station’?! LOL”
A strategically placed bird changes 大宮 (imperial palace) to 犬宮 (dog palace).
12 Likes
Posted by @MerelyGifted , regarding the final words of Julius Caesar.
Why would Julius Caesar have used greek instead of latin? We’ll never know if course, but greeks had made up a large part of the italian peninsula up until eventual roman conquest (Magna Graecia) so I expect being multilingual was a must.
6 Likes
Plutarch, who recounted Caesar’s last words, was Greek.
He does mention earlier
After this, Sulla’s power being now on the wane, and Caesar’s friends at home inviting him to return, Caesar sailed to Rhodes1 to study under Apollonius the son of Molon, an illustrious rhetorician with the reputation of a worthy character, of whom Cicero also was a pupil.
https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0244%3Achapter%3D3
2 Likes
Being multilingual in Greek was definitely a sign of education and refinement, and would have been expected in any member of the upper classes, just as any university educated or upper class Englishman of the 18th and 19th centuries would have been expected to know Latin.
Also, the stereotype was that if you wanted to be educated properly, you had Greek tutors. A Roman wasn’t really considered educated until he (of course “he”) was educated in Greek. As well as in Latin rhetoric, because while Senators were expected to know Greek, it was still foreign, and high-register Latin was the language of government.
7 Likes
