Al revés - an old Duolingo discussion (and maybe continuation of it)

[Cifi]

It was quite detailed as far as I remember, discussing e.g. what would normally be understood in which situation (upside down, back to front etc), but I can't find it anymore.

Does anyone else perhaps happens to remember it an have an old bookmark or link?

[Fer²]

You may be thinking of a post by Oso-the-bear titled "Is this backwards". Unfortunately, all I have is a link to the original forum page that is now offline: https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/55743169. Here's hoping someone backed it up somewhere!

[Cifi]

Excellent! Yes, it was that one, and the link was exactly what I needed to be able to access it in Hobune's archive:

https://duolingo.hobune.stream/comment/55743169

(I feel we can't thank him enough for having created this.)

[Cifi]

So, it seems that the expression may mean any of "upside down", "inside out", "back to front", "backwards" and maybe yet more (much the same way the German "verkehrt herum" would), it basically means "not the way it's supposed to be or it usually is", right?

My feeling is that this may be a reason why you can say "el árabe se escribe al revés", but this might also be understood as the wrong way, while "el árabe se escribe de derecha a izquierda" would be much more neutral. Am I correct about this?

And with clothes like e.g. t-shirts it would be ambiguous whether it means "inside out" or "back to front". The former I'd regard as more likely to happen (often by accident, occasionally on purpose), so this it what I would have assumed without context.

"Del revés" also is present on Duolingo, I found it in the French course ("Vuelve del revés la prenda" as a translation of "Il retourne le vêtement"). But al lot of (likely) native speakers state that it doesn't sound natural to them: https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/3487906/

[gmads]

So, it seems that the expression may mean any of "upside down", "inside out", "back to front", "backwards" and maybe yet more (much the same way the German "verkehrt herum" would), it basically means "not the way it's supposed to be or it usually is", right?

Exactly.

My feeling is that this may be a reason why you can say "el árabe se escribe al revés", but this might also be understood as the wrong way, while "el árabe se escribe de derecha a izquierda" would be much more neutral. Am I correct about this?

Relatively true. While "al revés" usually refers to something that is inverted or that is reversed from the regular order, it doesn't necessarily mean that whatever is "al revés" is wrong, and your example is a very good example of this. Saying that Arabic is written "al revés" just implies that it goes in the opposite direction to what one is used to. However, yes, to say that it is written from right to left would be not only neutral but also more accurate.

And with clothes like e.g. t-shirts it would be ambiguous whether it means "inside out" or "back to front". The former I'd regard as more likely to happen (often by accident, occasionally on purpose), so this it what I would have assumed without context.

Yes, without context it would be difficult to tell whether it was inside-out or front-to-back.

"Del revés" also is present on Duolingo, I found it in the French course ("Vuelve del revés la prenda" as a translation of "Il retourne le vêtement"). But al lot of (likely) native speakers state that it doesn't sound natural to them: https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/3487906/

I don't know French, so I had to use Google Translate. I got the following translation: "le da la vuelta a la prenda." This sounds more than perfect to me, and I would understand it as saying either of the following:

• "he/she/it turns the garment around." For example, a shirt is lying on the bed with its back facing up, and my brother comes, picks it up and puts it now with the front facing up.
• "he/she/it turns the garment inside-out." This says it all.

In my case, if I hear someone saying, "le da la vuelta a la prenda," I guess that my inital understanding would be the one I listed first, that is, to turn something around, but context is everything.

Given Duo's affinity and stubborn insistence on translating everything literally, it's no wonder to witness the confusion and desperation of people on the forum (comment/55743169).

So, I agree, "vuelve del revés la prenda," sounds quite strange and I would only understand it as turning the garnment inside-out, never as returning it back to the seller, as some suggested in the forum, in which case I would simply say, "devuelve la prenda."

Without thinking it too much, or checking in a dictionary, I would understand the expressión, "de revés," as meaning "backwards," for example, "le pegó de revés" ("he hit it backwards," in tennis or hockey, for example.

• Mi problema es cuando me saca un zurdo, en mi cancha se abre hacia afuera, si le pego de revés por lo general me bloquean en la red

• lo mismo pasó con un firme golpe de revés de Nakagawa
  
  

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