a_191_vek_963_n

[lethal delta]

Please be patient

Our volunteers look into many questions every day; sometimes it takes them a little while to answer.

Pro tip: you can rename the thread title with `.tr <thread name>`

Make it descriptive, including relevant context, but also to the point. This way you improve your chances of getting a more relevant and specific answer.

[fading thorn]

"journée" sounds like the equivalent word for "journey" in English.

That's how I've got confused.

[steady spade]

Journée is also a word translated as "day", though its meaning is subtly different from jour. It is a feminine noun and is related to jour, but a separate one from jour and not a form of the word jour

The English word Journey is related but it doesn't have the same meaning

Also, ChatGPT can produce natural sounding content in a lot of languages, but it is rather bad at producing correct grammar explanations and makes a lof of stuff up. Because of that it's unreliable and I absolutely do not recommend using it this way.

In this case, the difference in meaning given by it (day, as in period of daylight) is correct, but listing it as a form of the word jour isn't

[fading thorn]

This sounds terrible! It has given me another word and called it as a form! I wonder what I would have done if I hadn't gotten confused...

PERILOUS...

Thank you so much, Nired. I owe you one.

[steady spade]

It can do far worse than this, the worse part being that its explanations sound believable

[fleet wigeon]

The word ‘journeyman’ in English refers to the fact that their jobs lasted a whole day (hence a journée)

Either way, don’t rely on ChatGPT for stuff like this like sure if you’re looking for word translations but if you need explanations, they work badly

[fading thorn]

I just can't understand why I always have a pretty hard time getting genders from Spanish/French dictionaries. You've got to look very closely and read literally every part of the page to get the genders and sometimes you can't even see them no matter how hard you look for it.

[fading thorn]

Thank you for letting me know, Bertie. It's better to stay away from that machine thingy. Deceives people.

[fleet wigeon]

It depends on the dictionary but it’s listed next to the words anyway. Regardless if you need a good bilingual dictionary for quick translation, WordReference is wonderful

[fading thorn]

Understood, Bertie. God bless.

[steady spade]

I can't understand why either. Wiktionary for starters has a plethora of French and Spanish words, and gives the grammatical gender for all of them.

[fading thorn]

I've had the same problem while learning Spanish too. SpanishDictionary.com does a good job but when it comes to viewing genders just like every other dictionary out there, lacks. And I can't read the definitions on RAE since I am not that advanced. I need English to understand meanings. Thank you anyway for letting me know, I'll keep checking for a better one.

[fleet wigeon]

I just opened it and it gave me the gender?

it gives me the translation (almohada) and the gender (f for feminine)

Same thing here

Two translations, papel and periódico with their genders (m for masculine)

[steady spade]

Wiktionary has both English language definitions and gender. So do a lot of online dictionaries.

[fading thorn]

Trust me, if that word had a masculine form, the form would be in the middle of nowhere on the page and you would have to keep scrolling until you found it. I have had that happen numerous times before. That's the main problem, they OFC include it at the end of the day but they lack at it.

[fleet wigeon]

Now I did say it depends because if you’re dealing with a massive one like Cntrl sure it can be hard if you don’t know where to look but SpanishDictionary, Wiktionary, they seem clear to me

even then it’s almost always at the top

[steady spade]

Could it be that what you need is a quick rundown on how to read through webpage?

[fleet wigeon]

near the word like it says « PORTE subst. fem »

Either way, WordReference is great since it gives you the English word and its equivalent translation like ‘gate’ in the sense of a part in a fence where it opens, the translation is « portail » which is a masculine noun since it has nm

whereas the one below that is a feminine noun since it has nf

[fading thorn]

WordReference seems like a professional one. Thank you once again for the advice. I'll surely check it out.

[fleet wigeon]

nearly all dictionaries are professional though?

but anyway if you’re having difficulties in navigating the various dictionaries out there, WordReference at least is clear

[fading thorn]

INDEED. Thank you for the help, understood.

[fading thorn]

For instance, where is the form "humana"? GONE. They didn't even try a little to let you know. You would go into the word, you see "masculine form" and that's it. You think that there aren't any forms out there of that word. ONLY MASCULINE. That's how you get misinformed.

At least the "royal" dictionary allows you to see the forms but you don't understand a thing. So you've got to first use this dictionary to get the meaning, then that dictionary to get its forms and the steps go on until you fully understand a single word. Sometimes even three dictionaries aren't enough.

The majority of learners don't even care about the other meanings that have been listed in the dictionaries. They see it on a flashcard, then only memorise its two meanings or even one, then they think that they've fully got that word until they realise it's not that simple after years later when they see a native using it in dozens of different ways.

[fleet wigeon]

First off, ‘the majority of learners don’t even care about the other meanings’ is a big claim; if they didn’t care, there wouldn’t be any dictionaries. I’ve spent months recommending WordReference and other dictionaries to other learners and not once have I received a question as to why they didn’t list all forms. That’s not necessarily the dictionary’s responsibility since their main function is to provide definitions. Even then, the SpanishDictionary page has examples of the adjective humano in various gender and number agreements.
Second off, if learners don’t read the entire translation page, is that really the fault of the dictionary?

[fading thorn]

SpanishDictionary.com doesn't have a single indicator that there is another form of the word "humano" as "humana" unless you search for it intentionally. And that's the greatest Spanish dictionary out there when you look at the numbers. As you've seen from the photos, they didn't even care to list it. You call that a dictionary? That's a mess, straight up RUBBISH.

And yeah, that's what it is about learners. I've had plenty of people learn definitions from Google Translate. And if that's not enough, what's up with that flashcard nonsense? I have seen those things numerous times and they have yet to include literally half of the meanings of a word. Just the main ones.

[fleet wigeon]

If I put in ‘human’ and clicked the first thing there, I could scroll down and see this

[fading thorn]

You've got to search it by "humano".

I would have used a translator if I were to get meanings from a language.

[fleet wigeon]

I see what you mean but even then someone could just click on the adjective form and get that instead

[fleet wigeon]

If flashcards included every meaning some cards would be really long

[fleet wigeon]

not optimal but sure

[fading thorn]

I've just tried, it's unclickable unfortunately.

I've seen the word "humano" somewhere and I thought about learning the word, you get into the dictionary and the sentence you instantly get is "MASCULINE NOUN", then here with that you simply understand there aren't any forms of that word unless you know the word "humana", then you search it and see there is another form out there.

[fleet wigeon]

Well WordReference lists the adjectival endings – which is why it’s best – but if learners were as you describe then no one would notice

[fading thorn]

I am looking forward to using that one as I said yesterday.

These were just to let you know.

[fleet wigeon]

But that’s not entirely the dictionary’s fault

[fading thorn]

They should have listed both or none.

Like RAE, the official Spanish dictionary but you can't understand anything from there unsurprisingly.

They have listed both.

I'll see what we can do with French. Using both WordReference from your advice and Cambridge's one would be beyond enough as I assume.

[fleet wigeon]

They’re under no obligation to do that. For example, some verbs in French take the auxiliary être over avoir and if I just look up the definition, there wouldn’t be a marker saying that X verb takes être because that’s not what the dictionary does. If I wanted to do that, I’d have to look up the conjugation table and whatnot; I’m expected to do further research.

Sure, some dictionaries do that but that’s a bonus on their part

[fading thorn]

As you've spoken about verbs, of course. I've been studying a lot for the conjugations in Spanish. I study an hour a day for French. That's my routine, been doing this for literally two weeks. If I skip a day, I study two afterwards. I can't study a lot since my main point is Spanish as I am in Spain. You would have to learn all of them as I have been doing the same. I expect to work on them a lot. But for nouns, that's crucial. And listing a word's only masculine form rather than its both forms would be very misunderstanding for a learner. It would have been way better if they didn't only list the "masculine noun" while the word has a female form of its own as well. That's the way I think.

And thanks in addition for the advices, greetings to Indonesia.

[fleet wigeon]

To be fair, « humano » is also a masculine noun so that’s not their fault. If you look up « humain » you’re also going to see ‘masculine noun’

[fading thorn]

I haven't said it's not masculine.

[steady spade]

You seem to be very worked up over a small deal