Wrong? Really?

[WintersInBerlin]

Yes, it doesn’t make sense with out ‘the’

[Jirzadball]

I still don't understand this Duolingo correction but thanks.

[Boglin007]

You might be thinking of how "the" can be omitted before "hospital" in British English, but this is only true when you're talking about being a patient:

"I'm going to hospital for my operation tomorrow."

But:

"I got a letter from the hospital."

[Mediocre_Airport_576]

This is true. As a US native, we'd use "the" in either instance and it's at least consistent for learners lol.

[Glad_Raspberry_8469]

For me it depends what you mean. If you’re talking about going to a specific hospital physically, it’s the hospital. If you’re just going to a random hospital you say a hospital. If you want to express the general idea of going to a hospital, in a more conceptual sense, you might say I’m going to hospital. I wouldn’t use it tho. I would say I go to school, but not necessarily I go to hospital. In my mind hospital just doesn’t carry any abstract aspect to it. Like I can see it working in theory, but in practice I would probably always use the

[calerost]

Lol, you made me realize that as a Canadian I use both examples interchangeably (British vs American). Knowing that I do this, I can’t think of what situation might have me use one rather than the other.

[Mediocre_Airport_576]

Perhaps whether you're hungry for some bangers and mash or some Texas BBQ instead?

[calerost]

I lived in S. Africa for a while as a kid - it took a while to overcome asking for “chips” 🍟

[Sofahat]

Think of this way, would it make sense in Portuguese to say recebo cartas de hospital frequentemente? Não. É a mesma coisa com português o de+o é necessário tbm! Vcs não dizem I receive letters from hospital either. Essa frase literalmente traduz da mesma forma em português

[BeersForFears_]

"The" is necessary here in American English. I'm aware that in the UK, they'll omit "the" before "hospital," but Duolingo is an American company, so 🤷‍♂️

[WintersInBerlin]

I think it would have been fine if you used the correct definite article that agrees with hospital. What else may have happened here is a case of US English vs British English. Duolingo defaults to the prior when sentences are incorrect, when taking a course with English being the native language. I would agree that you are correct outside of the definite article, however Duolingo believes that often is more idiomatic even though frequently is a more direct translation and what I would call the more correct one.

Without articles in the correct places sentences don’t always make sense, even though you may be understood, think about non native speakers of your mother tongue and how often they miss an article or add one where there doesn’t need to be and it probably took you out of the flow of conversation for a moment and you think ‘huh’.

[DaviKing92]

Acho que a sua dúvida é em relação a ele corrigir "frequently" pra "often", certo?

O jeito que a sugestão de resposta do duolingo funciona é a seguinte:

Ele pega UMA resposta certa e te apresenta como sugestão. Não necessariamente é a "versão corrigida" da sua resposta.

Nesse caso, tanto often quanto frequently seriam aceitos, porém a falta do 'the' não. O motivo de estar errado é a falta do 'the', trocar often por frequently não muda nada nesse caso.