English term
Professional translation services
Native in: Croatian
Works in: German to Croatian, English to Croatian
don’t need / need
"Task: Choose correct words:
We don’t need / need to hand this in until next week."
"don’t need / need" are written in italics as alternative options.
In my opinion, both sentences are grammatically correct.
- We don’t need to hand this in until next week.
- We need to hand this in until next week.
Is there any reason why one would be more correct than the other?
TIA!
Mar 29, 2023 13:51: philgoddard changed "Field (write-in)" from "Zerkleinerungsanlage" to "(none)"
Mar 29, 2023 14:27: Chris Says Bye changed "Level" from "PRO" to "Non-PRO"
Non-PRO (3): Tony M, Yasutomo Kanazawa, Chris Says Bye
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Responses
United Kingdom
Flawless translations of corporate texts
Native in: English (Variant: UK)
Works in: German to English, English
not...until
We don't need to hand this in until next week
OR
We need to hand this in [or - we have to hand this in] **by** next week
If you had "we need to hand this in until next week", it refers to a continuous action (e.g. "we need to keep stirring the eggs until they are well-mixed) - which obviously doesn't make sense here.
| agree |
Tony M
20 mins
|
| agree |
philgoddard
22 mins
|
| agree |
Nadja Wieser
25 mins
|
| agree |
Yvonne Gallagher
: Basic grammar
1 hr
|
| agree |
Arabic & More
1 hr
|
| agree |
Sarah Lewis-Morgan
2 hrs
|
| agree |
Jaime Oriard
2 hrs
|
| agree |
AllegroTrans
: Understandable confusion as I think "by" and "until" are expressed with one single word in some languages
4 hrs
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| agree |
writeaway
9 hrs
|
United Kingdom
Ro native,BA Eng,translator,proofreader
Native in: Romanian (Variants: Transylvanian, Moldovan, Romania) 
Works in: English to Romanian, Romanian to English, Romanian, and 1 more.
Until vs by
It is incorrect to say we need to hand it in UNTIL next week. The correct version would be " we need to hand it in BY next week.
So:
We don't need to hand it in until next week
We need to hand it in by next week.
Is it more clear? Hope it helps
| agree |
Arabic & More
1 hr
|
| neutral |
AllegroTrans
: This is essentially the same answer as Jennifer's, with which you could have agreed
8 hrs
|
|
Yes absolutely. When I started typing there were no answers. Jennifer published her answer first. I think the main goal here is to be helpful, and 2 people can explain the same thing in different ways, no harm done. No need for judgement here.
|
|
| agree |
Chris Says Bye
: @AllegroTrans, they were clearly typing at the same time...
1 day 20 hrs
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Thank you Ice Scream, exactly right!
|
Nigeria
Translation, Subtitling, Copywriting
Native in: Nigerian , Tiv , Hausa , Nigerian Pidgin
Works in: Tiv to Hausa, English to Nigerian, English to Hausa, and 18 more.
We don’t need / need to hand this in until next week.
| disagree |
AllegroTrans
: The question has already been answered and "this is because the there a subject i this" makes no sense whatever
16 hrs
|
Discussion
My first instinct was to choose "don't need", but the answer key specified "need" as the correct answer. Therefore I thank all the native speakers for their effort here to clarify it. It's then a double mistake :)