How long have you done something

Question

Duolingo is driving me crazy with their new additions to the "Learn English as a Spanish speaker" tree (reverse tree for me). The old sections have been adequately vetted so that usually a reasonable answer succeeds. This new section even refuses some of what seem to me to be the most logical answers, and many in English that I know to be perfectly correct and equivalent to what they say are marked wrong. (Like I have to remember to say "I did it on Tuesday" instead of "I did it Tuesday", as they won't accept it without the "on". It is harder to argue with the Spanish answers as I can never be sure.

Anyway, I wanted to check one here (and I may do more), because mostly when I put the questions on the threads there, they just get ignored.

The sentence given:

How long have you played chess?

My answer:

¿Cuánto tiempo hace que juegas al ajedrez?

Which I was told was wrong, and given this:

Solución correcta:¿Cuánto tiempo has jugado al ajedrez?

Opinions please.

Note for English learners:

To me the sentence "How long have you played chess?" can only mean how long has it been since you first played chess.

The sentence "How long have you been playing chess?" I can interpret as either the same as above, or how long have you been playing chess in this particular session.

Wow! Things have changed for the worse, since I've been there. I used to really like them. - rac1, May 13, 2017

I think the new section to take it up a notch will just take some work, it is still worth it because it makes me think about it. :) - bosquederoble, May 13, 2017

Bosque: Did you notice that the correct answer was in the present perfect--just like the English. As a teacher I think that this might have been the point they were trying to make. - Daniela2041, May 14, 2017

:) - ian-hill, May 14, 2017

But we are taught that the natural way to translate that is the formula I used, not the present perfect. I think, as Ken notes, they just have not thought through all the options. I just wanted to be sure my answer truly was one of those options. :) - bosquederoble, May 14, 2017

Answer 1

How long have you played chess?" can only mean how long has it been since you first played chess..

With this sense :

Desde hace cuanto juegas al ajedrez Cuanto tiempo hace que juegas al ajedrez.

The sentence "How long have you been playing chess?" I can interpret as either the same as above, or how long have you been playing chess in this particular session.

With this sense cuantas horas llevas jugando al ajedrez or cuanto tiempo llevas/estas jugando al ajedrez sin interrupción / parar

But literally translated.

How long have you played chess.=Cuanto tiempo has jugado al ajedrez .

And the meaning is how much time have you spent playing it

¿Desde hace cuanto juegas al ajedrez? Desde los 3 años.

¿cuanto tiempo hace que juegas al ajedrez? Juego al ajedrez(desde) hace 5 años.

¿cuanto tiempo llevas jugando al ajedrez? Llevo jugando al ajedrez 3 horas y todavia no hemos terminado.

¿cuanto tiempo has jugado al ajedrez? He jugado 1 hora y 20 minutos

How much time have you spent playing it. How many times have you played it. (The first is your English correction, the second and example using many). :) - bosquederoble, May 13, 2017

How much time have you spent playing it remains ambiguous, but in English to me- add up all the time periods that you have played it and give me that sum. :) - bosquederoble, May 13, 2017

How many times have you played chess= cuántas veces has jugado al ajedrez. :) - bosquederoble, May 13, 2017

if Cuánto tiempo has jugado al ajedrez= how much time have you played chess- as I interpret the English it is not the same as how long have you played chess. - bosquederoble, May 13, 2017

to me how long have you played chess is how much time has elapsed since you first played chess. how much time have you played chess only includes the time periods you actively were playing chess. :) - bosquederoble, May 13, 2017

ok. I 'll edit my post with some examples . - 000a35ff, May 13, 2017

Gracias, son muy útiles. :) - bosquederoble, May 14, 2017

I will say if you add a time to it, How long have you played chess today, can be the same as how much time have you been playing chess. :) - bosquederoble, May 14, 2017

Answer 2

I'll have to agree with astotxua. If you want to ask how long the present game has been going on you can ask: ¿Cuánto tiempo hace que estás jugando al ajedrez.

It has basically the same meaning as Astotxua's "¿cuanto tiempo llevas jugando al ajedrez? Llevo jugando al ajedrez 3 horas y todavia no hemos terminado."

Note the present participle "jugando" in both mine and Astotxua's answers which conveys the sense that the game has been going on for a while.

;) - ray76, May 14, 2017

Answer 3

Bosque:

I haven't been on Duolingo for awhile. I understand you to mean that they have added some new sections (brand new content).

From my experience, if you enter a suggestion for an alternative answer on a thread it is generally ignored by the site developers and content authors.

You have to use the button that says something to the effect of "I think my answer should be accepted" and then you can explain why. I have had dozens or maybe 100+ answers accepted. You get an email telling you when an answer is accepted. Sometimes it takes weeks and even months to get an answer accepted.

The reason the "old" content is more forgiving is because many other people have been doing the same...submitting their suggestions for a long time.

With new content, it is understandable that the system is much less forgiving.

They don't have an artificial intelligence engine to judge right and wrong. They simply have a data base of correct responses. When a new section is created, they only have the ones that the author can think of when writing the content. The data base expands and becomes more forgiving over time.

Some people feel that Duolingo ends up being TOO forgiving after they accept many "I think my answer is right" suggestions. They tend to accept things as long as there is any reasonable group of speakers who would say it that way, whether it is correct grammar or not.

P.S. I know that your answer should have been accepted.

I have sent a lot of feeback on answers. I don't read all the emails Spanish generates for me. But I get the same wrong answers over and over. :) - bosquederoble, May 13, 2017

You should check and see if you have the extension on your reverse tree. :) - bosquederoble, May 13, 2017

Okay I went back and found a couple from March where they accepted my suggestions, both in Spanish and English- I have mostly quit sending Spanish suggestions, but when I am completely sure I do. :) - bosquederoble, May 13, 2017

I think it will just take a while for them to work it out. :) - bosquederoble, May 13, 2017

Sounds to me like they just made things more complicated. - rac1, May 13, 2017

They made harder sentences, which means more advanced learning, but way more possible ways to do a given thing, so it is hard for them to get each possibility. - bosquederoble, May 13, 2017

And I am doing the one to teach English to Spanish speakers, the Spanish for English speakers is really too easy for me for the most part. Although I do do the maintenance. You learn from challenges. :) - bosquederoble, May 13, 2017

Answer 4

I think I am done with Duolingo.

The Spanish/English equivalence on tests is sometimes arbitrary and not flexible, and occasionally it's completely wrong. I have the impression that its database needs to be polished.

For example, I remember I was given the following sentence to translate:

"Me había sentido muy fría esta noche".

That does not look like Spanish at all. You might think it's one of the crazy Google Translations.

Well...

¿Cuánto tiempo hace que juegas al ajedrez? and ¿Cuánto tiempo has jugado al ajedrez? are exactly the same: It's about how long has it been since you started to play chess.

Thanks, Raff. :) - bosquederoble, May 14, 2017

:) :) :) - Raff75, May 14, 2017

Answer 5

This is worth another round because I asked myself,-

How long has it been since you first played chess ?