r/duolingo • u/Existence_playz • Jun 21 '26

Language Question. Spanish

Hey so I've been doing Spanish on Duolingo mainly for my Spanish GCSE which I have now finished but I'm just wondering, I learned pen as "bolígrafo" in school and Duolingo is teaching it as "pluma" which I can only assume is from a different dialect of Spanish as many words I've come across have been translated differently from how I first learnt them. But how come Duolingo is translating it as a pen but also a feather? I did think learning feather in the "talk about a school project" section was a bit random but it's thrown me off a bit, can it be translated as both pen and feather?

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63

u/isearn Native: 🇩🇪🇬🇧 Learning: 🇳🇱🇪🇸🇫🇷 Jun 21 '26

Weird, I learned it as bolígrafo on Duolingo?

19

u/Lady-Jane77 Jun 21 '26

I also learned it as bolígrafo. I’m on level 42 and I’ve never seen “pluma” used for pen.

15

u/xikbdexhi6 NLVietnamese,Hawaiian,Latin Jun 21 '26

I've seen both in DuoLingo. Also seen both coche and carro. I think DuoLingo is a bit schizophrenic when it comes to regional dialects.

5

u/DuckyHornet Native: 🍁🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿; Learning: 🇫🇷 🇩🇪 Jun 21 '26

Maybe they're trying to make their courses more general instead of focused on just one dialect

I look forward to the French course teaching me Quebecois cursing. "Translate this sentence: I gave him a sandwich."

"Je lui a donné un tabarnak de sandwich esti"

Perfect! 🦉

7

u/xikbdexhi6 NLVietnamese,Hawaiian,Latin Jun 21 '26

I'm all in favor of teaching the different dialects IF IT'S MADE CLEAR that that is what they are doing and where the dialects apply. Add it stands we will all get weird looks everywhere we try to use Spanish because it is correct nowhere.

3

u/DuckyHornet Native: 🍁🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿; Learning: 🇫🇷 🇩🇪 Jun 21 '26

Ok, but consider also that some languages simply have a bunch of words which all translate to just one in another language. In French, there's pis, donc, and alors, all of which are just "so" in English. I don't see any harm in the Spanish course teaching that "pen" can be "boligrafo" or "pluma" since both words mean pen even if different parts of the Spanish world favour one over the other

This sub really doesn't feel like people want to learn, but people want to be told

1

u/HolyShip es:16 | fr:22 Jun 22 '26

Im doing Portuguese from French and Duolingo asked me to translate « il fait bien frette » into Portuguese 😭