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- "Non ho nessun vero amico."
131 Comments
That one and "The dogs were dying". Adopting a dog might help against sadness and death.
Don't you have your piano? There you go! Me, I only have this stupid triangle.
I put "I don't have a true friend". In English you wouldn't say "I don't have ANY true friend" which was an alternative answer
Me too. "I don't have a real friend" is how you would say that in English, never "Any real friend".
The problem is that there is no "un/una" in the sentence. You have to be careful with anglicisms.
"I do not have one real friend" is accepted on 13/9/2018. Clumsy gesture to native speakers.
Actually I think that what you would say is "I do not have any real friends" using the plural rather than the singular
But why is it necessary to add the word Real?!Wouldn't be better just to say I don't have any friend(s)?!
If you say that you don't have any real friends it means that you have some so-called friends but they are not likely to support you in difficult times. That is different from saying that you do not have any friends.
because the sentence has the word "vero" =means real, so the person might have 100 friends but none of them would be a true friend
Being thick I'm sure - can someone clarify the difference between "nessun" and "nessuno" ? Be gentle with me ..
nessun is used as an adjective, and must agree in gender and number with the thing that it describes, so i believe that nessuno is used where you use lo, nessun as un and nessuna as una. But I could be wrong!
That is 100% correct, though I would like to add that the indefinite article has the form "uno" which is used when you would find "lo" as the definite article.
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If amico is masculine singlular on its own, why does it become masculine plural when you add nessun in front of it? Shouldn't it be "nessun vero amici"?
I can't explain it in grammattical terms, but if you think of "nessun" as meaning not one, then it makes sense. I have not one friend. (It only sounds right to me because I'm a native Spanish speaker and we have a similar term, "ningun amigo.")
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Similarly, I think of nessun as "a single". In English, you could say, "I do not have a single true friend." That keeps the noun singular. Although, Duolingo does not accept "a single" in all instances.
Asked my Italian husband... He says because nessun is singular, and there is no equivalent plural for it, that amico has to remain singular. There is no translation that would be equivalent to " I do not have any true friends"
The expression may be singular in Italian, but the same expression is plural in English. The same idea is said differently in the two languages!
I find the usage notes for "nessuno" in Wiktionary helpful to my understanding that "nessuno" is a "singulare tantum"; it has no plural form, and it is used with singular verbs.
--- quote ---
The adjectival form has no plural form and is therefore only used with singular nouns. The pronoun is also a singulare tantum.
Before any grammatically connected word not beginning with s + consonant, cn, gn, pn, ps, x, or z, the masculine form nessuno changes into the apocopic form nessun, while the feminine form nessuna becomes nessun' before vowels:
nessun dolore
― no pain
nessun amico
― no friends
nessun'amica
― no (female) friends
nessun altro
― nobody else
--- unquote ---
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/nessuno
Translations:
• Non ho nessun vero amico.
• {lit: I have not any real friend. }
• [ I do not have any real friends. ]
:) KK
dicembre 2019
Why does Duolingo have so many sad sentences about death, lack of friends, etc? Listening to mechanical robot lady voice, it seems like my computer is depressed.
Life is not like Disneyland. It happens. So if some Italian person said that to you, you know you will understand what he said. :>)
I put "I do not have any real friends." and they said it was wrong. Should it be wrong? I could say "you are a true friend." Why only "real"?
I put 'I do not have a true friend' and was marked wrong with the answer given as 'I do not have 1 true friend' and I'm having trouble spotting the difference, although I notice the Italian I was trying to translate did not mention uno vero amico. The alternative translation given of 'any true friends' is plural i.e. amici....
see above. Nessun only comes as a singular, there is no plural equivalent, so amico has to stay in the singular.
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My answer I don't have a true friend should be accepted. Nobody says I don't have 1 true friend.
I do not have( one) real friend and I do not have( a )real friend should be the same
I put I don't have a true friend and it was marked wrong saying the right answer was 'any true friend'. Surely it's either any true friends or a true friend and since it uses the singular amico then my answer of singular friend should be right! Sort it out duolingo!
Would "Non ho alcuno vero amico" be right? (it would give sense to previous exercises)?
"Alcuno" becomes "alcun" when is followed by the noun (in this instance, the adjective of the noun) he refers to ;)
I write: "I haven´t any true friend." And the correct solution was "I haven´t GOT any true friend."
Could anybody explain, why the "got" is nessesary here? (Sorry, I´m not native english.
It makes no sense to me that duo translates it as "friends" in plural when it is clearly all singular, i dont have any true friend. If its supposed to be plural then make it plural, vero amici
Italian is structured differently... This is not duolingo being incorrect, it is just the Italian language.
You can say "non ho amici", but you must say "non ho nessun amico" or "non ho alcun amico". Alcuni/e can only be used in positive statements, and nessuno just doesn't have a plural.
Amico is friend, "not friends" it should read... I don't have a real friend. Amici is friends???
Could someone please tell me, is there no "nessuno" in Italian? Is it "nessun" for masculine singular and "nessuna" for feminine singular? Many thanks!
what's the difference between saying: I do not have any ...…. and I haven't any ?? Is the first preferred because it's American English?
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Here in America you'd probably say "I don't have any...", but those are also correct, perhaps they're a bit more formal.
What is wrong with “ a true friend “. How does amico become plural?
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i do not have any real friends./ i do not have any true friends. accepted on 17 Gennaio 2020.
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So NOW we discover a deeper truth! Merely two sentences ago this guy had calls coming in from various women everyday. Now, I guess I know why he does this.
This reminds me of the song "Tears of a Clown"
The audio is misleading because the speaker says "nessuna" quite distinctly instead of "nessun"---
That voice says vedo, not vero. How xan we learn if words are not spoken correctly.
I don't understand why "I have not one true friend" is incorrect. Can anyone help? Thanks
if you wanted to say that, i believe it would be "Non ho uno vero amico."
Seems we are all struggling with the same grammatical impasse, relating to nessun coming only in the singular. hope my answer above helps.
it is normal for Italian. also in Ukrainian and Russian we use double negative. though it may seem irrational to an englishspeaker
I put "I do not have even one true friend" and it was not accepted. I think this is a legitimate English translation, though maybe a trifle stronger in sentiment than "nessun" connotes. Any native speakers have thoughts?
Hey Duo, "real friends" it's just a concept. A concept is abstract, no real. Welcome to the real world ;)
'I do not have a real friend' was rejected and the correct answer given was 'i do not have 1 real friend'. Can someone point out the difference for me?
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I believe" I don't have a true friend" should be accepted. Duolingo said it should be "I don't have 1 true friend"
Amico vs. amici; hmmm... The setence ends in singular, yet marks it wrong because the answer is plural.
This makes me mad, why does there have to be two negatives here for it to work but with such a simple sentence such as "I don't eat cake" "non mangio torta" it only needs one negative to work. Plus shouldn't the two negatives cancel each other out, that'd be like saying "I never do not eat food."
Guys isn't this a double negative? Non ho = I don't have nessun= none of ...
In spanish you could say "No tengo ningun amigo de verdad." (In englisch more or less: "I don´t have no real friends.") I think, it´s the same in italian.
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If it helps , you have used a double negative . Definitely a big no no in English . If you had written " I have no real friends " it would be better .
This is a great conversation! I wish Duolingo had "Ha ha" emojis to post like Facebook!
