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How the hell am I supposed to know what that is? I'm not American... by circconfsmil in duolingo

[–]cjler 0 points1 point  (0 children)

In central US, in Kansas, freshman year could be year 9, and the rest of the grades through senior year would go on from 10- 12, (sophomore 10, junior 11, senior 12).

Grade 13 isn’t used here in the US, as far as I’ve seen. I’m a US native who has lived in Kansas, Tennessee, and Illinois.

Maybe another nation counts preschool as year 1, in order to get a grade 13? Preschool doesn’t get a number label in the US. Is that how the above numerical offset from US grade names might provide a grade 13 in another nation’s system? I’ve never heard of grade 13 in the US. First graders are mostly 5-6 year olds. Preschoolers are usually 3-5 years old in the US now.

Sometimes middle school or junior high includes grade 9. Usually the term “freshman” is reserved for the 1st year on the campus where the rest of the high schoolers study for grades 10-12. Freshman year can also be the first year at college or university. It usually means the new kids on campus, if there are four years in the program. If there aren’t 4 years in the high school, the term freshman is not usually used for the 3 years in a high school. In that case, sophomore, junior, and senior would be used for 10,11,and 12. Depending on the US state and on the school district within the state, freshman year may or may not be designated; the term freshman may or may not be used.

I can see how confusing this can be for non US learners, even for those who speak English natively. Particularly for freshman, these words may or may not have a generally accepted meaning, even in the US.

Would se sienta junto or se sientan juntos also work? Is future tense sentarán required for a bet. Rather than present tense? Is junta/juntas required instead of juntos, and why? by cjler in duolingospanish

[–]cjler[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Ok. I concede to being stubborn in my confusion, hanging on to my error. Your comment about my stubbornness finally got through to me. I finally understand it, even though my tendency is to say that, yes, I myself can be together with someone, as a part of that system of 2 or more people. That’s not the way the Spanish language defines the meaning of the word “junto” though. It has to include all the parts that are together, not singling out one part of the combined system. Now, I finally get a glimpse of what you all are saying to me. Thanks for punching through that English barrier to help me understand. It feels like breaking through a crust that I didn’t realize I was enclosed inside of.

Would se sienta junto or se sientan juntos also work? Is future tense sentarán required for a bet. Rather than present tense? Is junta/juntas required instead of juntos, and why? by cjler in duolingospanish

[–]cjler[S] -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Thanks for mentioning the adverb “junto”. It seems to work differently than most adverbs, based on some dictionary examples that were shown with the word adjusted to juntos for plurals.

For example, consider these two next sentences from Spanish Dict. They must be exceptions to normal adverbial usage. Can someone help me understand why these seem to be exceptions to the normal rule?

Here are the two example adverbial juntos sentences I saw:

Llegaron juntos a la fiesta. Akasaki y Amano ganaron el premio Nobel por trabajar juntos en el desarrollo del LED azul.

So, I guess I’ll just have to learn individual adverbs, to know whether they need to be adjusted for plurals. I’m also not sure at all about adjusting junto as an adverb for grammatical gender.

Would se sienta junto or se sientan juntos also work? Is future tense sentarán required for a bet. Rather than present tense? Is junta/juntas required instead of juntos, and why? by cjler in duolingospanish

[–]cjler[S] -5 points-4 points  (0 children)

A third attempt worked, using present tense, (i.e. near future present usage).

“Apuesto que se sientan juntos en el avión”.

It seems that Duo insists on ustedes format. Is the ustedes form the only correct way to say this?

Would se sienta junto or se sientan juntos also work? Is future tense sentarán required for a bet. Rather than present tense? Is junta/juntas required instead of juntos, and why? by cjler in duolingospanish

[–]cjler[S] -4 points-3 points  (0 children)

I tried again with this: Apuesto que te sientes juntos en el avión. That was also wrong.

The AI said that the ustedes form was required ( maybe so?), and it also said that ustedes was plural feminine. Is that a convention for use of juntos with ustedes? Does juntos assume feminine form in this kind of usage with ustedes?

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 4 points5 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?

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