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Duo owes me.

Moderators: MoniqueMaRie, dakanga

Qiset
United States of America

Duo owes me.

Post by Qiset »

"c'est loin de l'hotel" can mean either "it is far to the hotel" or "it is far from the hotel". But Duo won't accept the word "far" and it cost me my attempt to get legendary status. Before I could put it in the discussion but not now. Thanks for letting me rant. Now I'm ready for all the flak about why I'm wrong.

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dakanga

Re: Duo owes me.

Post by dakanga »

Welcome to these forums Qiset 👋

And it is okay to rant.

The sentence I think you are talking about is this one : https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/2863 ... -mon-hôtel

Though - it is locked from being able to be commented on.

As I am sure you are aware, we in this community are volunteers and language learners. And we do not work for Duolingo.
So do not expect any of us here can fix anything Duolingo does.

I hear your complaint.

And if you come across the sentence again, or someone else does, and it does not accept "It's far to my hotel.", I can suggest hitting that report button in Duolingo, on that sentence. please read the information by EranBarLev. However if you are very skilled with French, and you do come across a variation that is valid but currently not accepted, do consider using the report button in Duolingo. It does create a report.

Though to be fair to Duolingo they have a close to an uncountable number of reports, and it takes time to get to them. They do have a triage system, that helps them address reports. It is worth reporting things using that system.

I look forward to further communications you share in our community.

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EranBarLev
Israel

Re: Duo owes me.

Post by EranBarLev »

  1. "de" can't mean "to", that would be "à". So: "C'est loin de l'hotel" = "It's far from the hotel."
  2. You can install the script which creates sentence discussions in this forum, and then you can comment on it!

🇮🇱N 🇬🇧C1 🇪🇸B2 🇵🇹B1 🇫🇷B1 🇸🇦A1 🇷🇺A1

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dakanga

Re: Duo owes me.

Post by dakanga »

We are ever so fortunate to have you here [mention]EranBarLev[/mention] !
Thank you for this, and the numerous other things and great advice and reliable guidance you provide us.

I always enjoy reading and learn from your valued and reliable advice.

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dakanga

Re: Duo owes me.

Post by dakanga »

In reading the comments in that sentence discussion, there is one I am wishing to save to this forum here, as it is relevant to this discussion, and others as well:

AlanMarcha3 : I am English, I am here to learn French, not to be failed on my English!!!!
DianaM : I am always puzzled by this not infrequent remark. The English words need to convey the meaning of the French words. If we assume that an utterly random assortment of English words would not be correct, then clearly there has to be a line drawn somewhere between which English words are a good translation and which ones are not. Making such distinctions ultimately comes down to someone's opinion.

You did not favour us with what your actual answer was, but apparently you feel it was a sufficient translation, and Duo did not. It is possible that your answer could be added to the computer's list of correct translations, if you report it to Duo. Or it may be that Duo will not agree. It's their program.


and also this response - that is more relevant to the specific issue raised.

Neuronerd : I put "far to", but it says this should be "far from". Can someone please help me understand the difference and why "loin" only applies to the latter?
DianaM : It's not "loin" that is the issue, I believe. It is "de", which, in this context, means "from". "Far from" and "far to" differ in perspective. "Far from" = looking toward some destination from the perspective of the hotel's location. "Far to" = looking toward the hotel from some other perspective.

Now I'm not 100% certain, but I believe that if you wanted to say "It is far to my hotel [i.e., from here where we are]", you would say something like, "C'est loin jusqu'à [or maybe just à?] mon hôtel." Or maybe, "Mon hôtel est loin d'ici." I kind of think that sounds better.

Francophone opinion welcome.

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