maybe it’s another Duolingo bullshit they push upon us or maybe a typical thing in Japanese? namely in phrases like
けんさんは二年生ですか it could mean both “Is Ken a second year student?” and (according to duolingo) “are you a second year studentsophomore, Ken?” how do i know if it’s directly addressing the person? which is which?
I’ll say this because it is never ever said enough, Japanese is a high context language. Very often meaning is derived from what is going on in the moment. This is hard to convey through things like text books and duolingo.