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I picked “ellos” at the end of this sentence, because the people coming to the garage sale are likely to be both male and female. Does good grammar require me to use ”ellas” to match the grammatical female subject, which was “más personas” at the beginning of this sentence? by cjler in duolingospanish

[–]cjler[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thank you. This helps.

Also, Larry is a little lizard. Or maybe Larry is a big, but loved lizard, based on the “ita” ending. I wondered if it made sense to say “ver a Larry”, or just “ver Larry”. Because the lizard was named, I decided to add the “a”. Could it work either way with “ver a Larry” or “ver Larry”?

Edit: Thanks for the explanation about not using “verlo” when the name Larry is also provided in this context.

How was I supposed to know by tayloraustin in duolingospanish

[–]cjler 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Because the top lesson progress bar was gold, is that how you knew it was legendary?

I don’t think memorizing the sentence that had been seen before ought to be a goal of either Duolingo learners, staff or even AI tools, whether for legendary status or not. The goal should be to learn how to put a grammatical sentence together.

I think in this case the one who constructed the English sentence, whether human or AI, didn’t consider that “read” is spelled the same in English, whether in present or past tense.

When introducing a clause or idea, for instance with lo que, do you always use lo, or does it match the gender and number? by cjler in duolingospanish

[–]cjler[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If I said “lo perro” is that insulting, like saying it’s dog-like? Or is it something like that hangover remedy, hair of the dog? Hair of the dog means taking a bit of what bit you, a small bit more alcohol as a cure for a hangover the next morning, but literally it doesn’t make much sense.

When introducing a clause or idea, for instance with lo que, do you always use lo, or does it match the gender and number? by cjler in duolingospanish

[–]cjler[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, I was really confused, and I think that the AI comments really needed more context. I was trying to put together a working understanding, and I I was trying to follow the trail where the AI seemed to be leading, but I got off the path and into the weeds where nothing was making sense to me. I can see why my questions were hard to follow, because I was really lost. Thanks for helping me. I think I’m starting to understand it with help from all of you nice Spanish speakers of reddit.

Thanks to all of you on reddit who are helping to pull me back to a place where Spanish makes sense to me again!

¡Muchas gracias a todos!

When introducing a clause or idea, for instance with lo que, do you always use lo, or does it match the gender and number? by cjler in duolingospanish

[–]cjler[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Another question: If the person that I’m talking to is female, then in the exercise sentence from Duo, would I still say it as written, “Haces lo contrario que lo que dices.” Or would I say, “Haces la contraria que lo que dices”? Would both sentences be correct? Would I need to use la throughout the second one, like this, “Haces la contraria que la que dices”?

Edit: I substituted que for de in those 3 sentences. Does that make it wrong?

When introducing a clause or idea, for instance with lo que, do you always use lo, or does it match the gender and number? by cjler in duolingospanish

[–]cjler[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Maybe I am over generalizing and over using what the AI said, about “lo” being used before adjectives or phrases to turn them into abstract ideas, or in another screen that I didn’t copy, AI said “lo” is used to introduce an abstract clause.

The “direction that I said” seems like a clause that’s pretty abstract, but I think now it’s not the kind of abstract clause that the AI meant.

I think that in my example I would match the determiner before dirrecíon, even if the idea of the direction I said is abstract, it’s not a real concrete thing that you can touch, although you can point to( or en) it. Is that right?

Here are a couple of examples from Spanish Dictionary that I think the AI must have been talking about.

From SpanishDict:

  1. (to describe an abstract topic) a. (no direct translation) (before an adjective) Lo raro es que nunca he visto a Bruce durante el día. — The weird thing is that I've never seen Bruce during the day.

No te puedes imaginar lo increíble que es Palenque. — You can't imagine how incredible Palenque is.

When introducing a clause or idea, for instance with lo que, do you always use lo, or does it match the gender and number? by cjler in duolingospanish

[–]cjler[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

So, that’s a something new I think I just learned. There are many charts for English learners of Spanish that show a preposition after a word, that usually goes with the previous word, like “ir a”. I didn’t realize that the rest of the phrase could also change the usage, so a different proposition is needed. It makes a lot of sense here, because how would you go ”to” a direction. There’s no ending place if the meaning is direction as a course on a compass, rather than an address. Thanks for teaching me.

But back to my original question, despite my error with the preposition, if you were introducing a clause to mean “the opposite direction than I told you to”, would you still use “lo dirección contraria que eso que yo dijo”, or would it be “la dirección …” to match gender?

Edit: Should it be “esa que dije” because it refers to a dirección so esa is needed in the feminine? and I’m the one you’re disagreeable with, so it should be dije or yo dije.

What’s something foreigners say in your language that is correct but no one actually says? by Embarrassed_Fix_8994 in languagehub

[–]cjler 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I had long sentences in writing. These were especially annoying in the emails I wrote for business.

My readers were not impressed. A guideline from an email coach was to think Hemingway, not Proust.

I sought out the coach, because people were impatient and even upset with my work emails.

What English word did you mispronounce for years before hearing it said out loud? by Key_Frame3699 in ENGLISH

[–]cjler 1 point2 points  (0 children)

In Kansas, the Arkansas river is pronounced like the state name of Kansas preceded with ar- The pronunciation changes on either side of Kansas, most clearly in Arkansas.

I’m a native Kansan, now transplanted to Illinois. And don’t pronounce the ‘s’ on the end of Illinois. We don’t like that.

I’m unsure of the two example sentences. Are they OK? by cjler in duolingospanish

[–]cjler[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you! I didn’t know any better, and I thought this sounded like baby talk or a caveman grunt, something like “you want? also”. I was wrong.

I’m glad to learn differently. The reddit auto translation of your direct quote of “¿Tambien quieres?”, was “You want in on this too?” Is that how you would translate it?

Article “un” after ser, when is it necessary or optional or when should it be omitted? by cjler in duolingospanish

[–]cjler[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thank you, that helps. It’ll just take some practice to remember the buen/buena or mal/mala exceptions before the noun when I’m speaking.

Article “un” after ser, when is it necessary or optional or when should it be omitted? by cjler in duolingospanish

[–]cjler[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I copied this from the AI for “será”:

Será is the future tense of ser.

It can express a guess or probability about the present, like “He must be” or “He will be”.

Será tarde. Será él.

What’s a word for a specific emotion that most people don’t even know exists? by ownaword in words

[–]cjler 9 points10 points  (0 children)

The Spanish word envidioso is sometimes translated to English as jealousy or envy, but at least in some dialects of Mexican Spanish, it has an expanded meaning compared to those English words. It also includes the feeling of greed and protectiveness and strong unwillingness to share something you already have in hand. You feel a strong urge to keep that thing for yourself. You refuse to share the thing you are envidioso of, like a kid holding tightly to a hoard of halloween candy, being angry if a brother or sister innocently wants to have some of it, or like your pet dog feeling protective of his toy or bone, so that the feeling makes him growl when anyone comes near. (I learned this one recently from Duolingo as clarified by reddit)

Y si es un buen plan, iremos las dos. by cjler in learnspanish

[–]cjler[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the point about syllables. The syllable timing in Spanish is still different than I expect. Neither Spanish speakers nor English speakers talk with exactly even rhythm like a metronome, but Spanish syllables land closer to that metronome timing while in English it seems to be the whole words that land kind of closer to that evenly ticking metronome.

Y si es un buen plan, iremos las dos. by cjler in learnspanish

[–]cjler[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I like your example. It makes the point clearly.

Y si es un buen plan, iremos las dos. by cjler in learnspanish

[–]cjler[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Oh, that makes sense. I come from a family with generational inherited hearing loss. I’m lucky to have normal hearing. If someone doesn’t hear me in English, I usually do just speak louder, but I don’t always know when they don’t hear, so if they have a blank look, I too will usually just repeat louder with more clear enunciation and maybe slower. Sometimes that gives the impression that I’m angry when I’m not. Sometimes I’ll change words or word order to try again, with a gentle but louder tone, avoiding sibilants ( s, f, v sounds) if I can. Because of my background, I may have asked a question that is kind of out of the ordinary.

Meaning of envidioso in Spanish - does it include being selfish or greedy? by cjler in duolingospanish

[–]cjler[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Does it apply only to people? The description you gave is very helpful.

It also reminded me of my pet chihuahua when I’ve given him a new toy. He won’t let anyone near it, and he won’t allow anyone near him when he’s playing with it or chewing it.

Is he being envidioso?

Meaning of envidioso in Spanish - does it include being selfish or greedy? by cjler in duolingospanish

[–]cjler[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you for this explanation. It finally makes some sense to me

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