Possessives

[loupnoir]

Still working my way through Duolingo's German course.  For most of the things that make no sense, I can eventually find an answer via Google.  This one is still making no sense to me.

Ist es möglich, dass deine Kreditkarte im Koffer ist?

To me, it translates as: Is it possible that your credit card is in the suitcase?  Duo says that it's: Is it

Comments

[fervid_dryfire]

I'm sure there are people here who haven't taken their last German course about 18 years ago (unlike me), but here's my guess: Dulolingo is assuming a possessive (in deinem Koffer) in the contraction "in dem." I don't think I've seen "in deinem" assumed to contract to "in dem" on a regular basis, but it's possible.

A quick handful of phrase inputs on leo.org doesn't seem to clear anything up there, either. If I could dig out any of my old grammar materials maybe I could see if there's a rule about it tucked away somewhere...

Edit: I just realized you're talking about if the sentence took "*your* credit card" to extend to/assume "(your) suitcase" in the example. Again I can only say "maybe," though. Hopefully someone more current on the use of the possessive can shed some light on this- at this point I'd like a solid answer, too! =)

[schnee]

I feel that your translation is correct: im is a contraction of in dem (but not in deinem).

Duolingo's translation is, perhpas, semantically correct in the sense that the suitcase that your credit card's in will most likely be your own in practice. But it's not syntactically correct: this isn't in the words, as such, and the possessive doesn't extend to the next noun.

One thing to remember about Duolingo is that people can suggest new translations that they think should also be correct, and Duolingo tends to approve new translations unless they really are blatantly wrong. Chances that this is one example.