Quality of sentences a) in language to learn and b) in language learned from

[Cifi]

Hi all,

There often were recommendations to do the "reverse tree" after completing a course, but many times I've seen native speakers complain in sentence discussions that the sentences in the language learned from wouldn't be very natural, so I'm still doubtful how much sense this would make.

I've finished Spanish from English, and I'm doing English from Spanish, but as I'm not native in either language I can't really tell how natural the translations are.

But maybe some of you are either native English or Spanish and can give your impression?

I'll try to look into the courses Spanish from German, German from Spanish, English from German and German from English in turn to see what I think about the German they use.

[trackerwannabe]

There often were recommendations to do the "reverse tree" after completing a course, but many times I've seen native speakers complain in sentence discussions that the sentences in the language learned from wouldn't be very natural, so I'm still doubtful how much sense this would make.

I've finished the English-to-French tree at level 1, and am working my way through the remaining levels. I've also done the French-to-English tree at all levels. (It's a much shorter tree). While I'm aware, both from the comments and from my experience with the English translations, that some of the translations may be sub-optimal (or even wrong), there seems to be value in my doing both trees. If nothing else, I find that it exposes me to new vocabulary (which is not identical across the two trees).

[pawndemic]

As always, it depends on what you expect of doing the reverse tree. I also do the reverse trees. My reasons were

• read in the discussion forum, what they think of their sentences, especially the strange one which I already met in the German tree.

• practice my language in answering questions in the target language.

• Elimante stupid errors, For me these are errors who I commit despite the fact that I already know that is wrong and I commit them anyway.

As you can see, 2 out 3 need a discussion forum which is alive. Therefore at the moment the reverse tree is not very attractive to me anymore.

[DJrossonwye]

I am a British English native speaker.

I have started on the English from Spanish tree after concentrating mainly on the Spanish from English. I have certainly found different ways of saying things in Spanish there. It has been useful in that regard.

As far as the English translations go, I have found them to be generally good. I have used the report button to ask for various EXTRA answers to be accepted, but generally the default answers are fine - once you accept that some are going to be "duolingoisms" i.e. not sentences you would normally hear in real life, but included to show a grammatical structure.

[Cifi]

I did some lessons in Spanish from German, and for the most part the German translations are ok.

But when it comes to grammatical constructions that don't exist in German, e.g. progressive tenses, they will force you to use rather awkward sentences that sometimes actually have a different meaning.

[Cifi]

I looked into "German from English" now, and found it worse than I expected. Very colloquial sometimes (things you might say, but rather not write, or maybe in very informal contexts like text messages), and some sentences with very unnatural - if not wrong - word order or strange translations.

[Cifi]

German from Spanish is a course I already did partly before, and revisited now. Overall, the German sentences seem ok. A few are very colloquial, some would not be what I'd usually say, but only very few a totally off or wrong.

[SweNedGuy]

Portuguese from Spanish sounds a very logical choice, since the lexical similarity is beyond compare. I am over half way on the Portuguese from Spanish course. (Most of the tree is red now.) Some suggested translations into Spanish are so literal that they sound absolutely awkward. Few of them make my hair turn grey. The course may be harmful for your Spanish, unless your level is above intermediate.

[Cifi]

Here's one found in English from Spanish

Screenshot_20220414-110713.png (107.64 KiB) Viewed 600 times

I'm not native English, but he used to sold can't be a good thing to teach English learners, can it?

[sandygaletoo]

I'll try to look into the courses Spanish from German, German from Spanish, English from German and German from English in turn to see what I think about the German they use.

I had started the German -> English tree after completing one full level of the English -> German tree (131 skills, I think). Then, due to various reasons after a big update to the English -> German tree, I just focused on the German -> English tree. Whilst I did find some errors, for the most part it was good to do it. I was exposed to additional vocabulary and more advanced sentence structure earlier.

Then, when I went back to the English -> German tree, I found that the lessons were easier. I can only speculate, but I think it was because I was exposed to more complicated information, and did much more research for definitions, grammar structure, comparison between the two languages. And, I have now become better at composing sentences in my head, in the moment, to actually say to my German colleagues, in the shops, restaurants, etc. Not perfect, but it is nice to see improvements

[Cifi]

In English from Spanish there are a lot of complaints that the Spanish translations would be poor quality or sometimes even wrong.

As I'm only a learner, I'm not the one to judge this, but there are some which I, too, consider questionable, e.g. "Las entrevistas de trabajo lo ponen muy ansioso a Bruno".

[Sofia222677]

I've found calques (word-for-word translations) from English in Italian sentences in both the IT>EN and EN>IT courses.
The latter also features literal translations from Italian that are grammatically wrong in English, in additon to scores of wrong uses of Italian articles, prepositions and even verb tenses, not to mention also literal translations of Italian idioms (sigh!).

The IT>DE course also features calques from English, both in grammar (such as putting place before time in German translations) and vocabulary.

[Julian_L.]

As I'm only a learner, I'm not the one to judge this, but there are some which I, too, consider questionable, e.g. "Las entrevistas de trabajo lo ponen muy ansioso a Bruno".

Doubling the direct object is normal in the Rioplatense dialect, but not (or not standard) in the other ones, so yes, it's questionable, because it's not wrong, but it doesn't take into account the other twenty countries.

[Cifi]

And another one in English from Spanish that might be questionable:

I've always wanted a blue coat with shiny gold buttons!
¡Siempre he querido un abrigo azul con botones dorados brillantes!

Unfortunately I can't link to the sentence discussion as I was using the app and google doesn't list it, but people said they would either say botones dorados y brillantes or separate the adjectives: brillantes botones dorados. Would you native speakers here on the duome forum favor these over the given translation, too?

[Explorer]

And another one in English from Spanish that might be questionable:

I've always wanted a blue coat with shiny gold buttons!
¡Siempre he querido un abrigo azul con botones dorados brillantes!

Unfortunately I can't link to the sentence discussion as I was using the app and google doesn't list it, but people said they would either say botones dorados y brillantes or separate the adjectives: brillantes botones dorados. Would you native speakers here on the duome forum favor these over the given translation, too?

Botones dorados brillantes, botones dorados y brillantes and brillantes botones dorados.

I like the last sentence better, but I think it's just a matter of style and personal taste. In any case the Spanish language is quite flexible, so in my eyes I would say that all three translations are correct.