I’m struggling to get the imperative right in CM. Does anyone have any suggestions for how to tackle questions like this one:
__________ entrar.
Let me in, please
I think, ok, probably permitir. Permitir, probably tú form, so permíteme. The right answer is permítame, so addressing usted.
The fact that the tú form and the usted form change ending (a or e) plus the lack of indication of who is being addressed in CM, means I’m constantly getting confused and getting these wrong. Or what happens is I’ll try one possibility, as in permíteme, get 1 letter off, and then re-do it as permítame.
But I feel like it’s guessing, and I start getting confused (Do I change the ending form ar → er? Oh, no, that’s negative imperative. Oh, but what about usted? etc etc round and round) The proper way is not sticking.
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This is an issue in French, too, when you often can’t tell from the rest of the sentence whether it wants the “tu” form or the “vous” form of the verb.
When you’re playing multi-choice, there’s no solution I know of and you just have to accept getting a certain number of sentences “wrong” every set.
When playing text input, I usually keep the green/red colour hint and text box size hint on, though I’d like to be playing without them. I start typing one form and if it’s not the one they’re after, I change it over.
You’re not really guessing, you’re mentally scrolling through the various possibilities for right answers in that language. I found they stuck eventually!
It certainly makes me appreciate that we don’t have this issue in English!
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I sometimes use the Hint field to indicate the grammatical number and person. It is a bother but it pays off in the end.
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Thanks for your responses. Very helpful.
I think perhaps slowing down and even referencing a grammar manual for each imperative sentence will help as well. I did this for the last few imperative questions I had and it felt like a real choice I was making (eg, trying the tú form, then trying ud) instead of a guess.
I’ll review the imperative and start slowing down for these.
Cheers! Thank you!
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Is the word “please” in the translation misleading, or am I missing something?
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