As so often in these exercises, there are two basic problems: (1) a lack of context: if the target sentence had been "finalmente, ha lavoro" there would have been no possibility of confusion with "non è a casa; è al lavoro"; (2) a clear understanding of when to teach something. If the purpose of the test item is to test the ability of the listener to hear the longer L sound in "al lavoro", is this (a) the best way to teach it and (b) is this the appropriate lesson in which to encourage learners to hear the difference between 2 L's and 1 L. Of course, it may also have been the case that the duolingo sentence generator doesn't even think about such issues, or recognize the possibility of ambiguity in what it is asking.
But like this you can get used to everyday speech. ;) I guess normal people won't talk extra slow neither. And like in any other language, they'll simply gulp down parts of the words. I think we'll get used to it sometime. Eventually, if we work really hard, we'll know intuitively what couldn' t be heard. Like in French "J'pas" = "Je ne sais pas" (=I don't know)
Very well said. Another responder has said that we need to report issues, so perhaps this could encourage others to do so. I thought this was a a proper name, Al Lavori or Lavoro or something. Who the heck can tell without the reasonable context. It becomes a guessing game, with nothing to learn except others are frustrated too.
It's impressive how here in Argentina we use the verb laburar(laburo) which comes from italian and we also use it to signify work- substantive and the verb- its because we've received a lot of italian inmigrants in the past. It has become slang, even though we have our own word for work (trabajar-trabajo). Its impressive. Theres a lot of words we have mixed with the italian language. Another one that comes at mind is birra, which its slang and we also use it for beer. I guess no one will reed this, but it has amazed me, the similarities. Its one of the reasons im interested on learning italian