"Lei legge un libro ed io leggo il giornale."
Translation:She reads a book and I read the newspaper.
48 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
Yes, that switch from "un" in the first sentence to "il" in the second was mean. But we'll be dealing with much worse later on.
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I agree that it sounds like 'un'. I only got it right because I listened to it on the slow speed as well, which makes the 'il' clear.
This is true of most of the audio. Specifically the male articles give me trouble at full speed. Usually you can guess from context but this one switches on you.
I also disagree that duo makes the distinction between the/a newspaper. In common english (or, at least dialects with which I'm familiar) these are used interchangeably in most cases. "I am reading a newspaper" is equivalent to "I am reading the newspaper" unless you are making a specific distinction by placing emphasis on the "the".
Normally you use 'e' except when the next word starts with a vowel. In that case, 'ed' is frequently used. This is not a steadfast rule, however. It's an euphonic measure to counter ugly sounding vowel combinations. It is most frequently used if the vowel following the 'e' is also an 'e'. A counterexample would be 'ed Edmondo'. I guess most Italians would prefer 'e Edmondo' because it sounds better. The same rule applies for 'a/ad' BTW. Think about the usage of 'a/an' in English.
I had to write this to the site manager: "The diction is poor - the difference between "il" and "un" is almost undistinguishable at normal speed. I have to always listen at slow speed to hear the which one it is. I can't be having that in conversation."
Why it's 'a book' but 'the newspaper'? I mean I understand the words (un/il), I'm just wondering why it's not both 'a' or both 'the' in that sentence...
Journal is something one writes to record personal life events. Newspaper is written by reporters to inform the public of events outside personal life. For example: "Ann writes in her journal every day about her experiences at her new school" and "Joseph read about the robbery in the newspaper". Journal would be the correct answer if you were translating to French, not to English.
Why isn't there a comma between "libro" and "ed"? Do you not separate two independent clauses with a comma in Italian?
The "s" is the most important part of the verb in this sentence. We say: "I read, you read, he/she/it reads. It's ok now you know next time it'll be easy. Have a lingot to get started.
Thanks for the encouragement! But i'm actually fluent in English. I'm studying Italian, but somehow I had a typo in the language I'm good at. >.<
Whoops! Sorry I was not aware of course. Well you'll see that since the robot is programmed to accept or reject standardized grammatical items such missteps are not overlooked. Guess I owe you another lingot.
"ed" is the same as "e" just that the "ed" is used if the next letter sounds similar. It's really used to break up like sounding vowels so it doesn't sound like a long vowel sound.
For example: "libro ed io leggo", "e" and "i" similar enough (eh and eeoh) that it would be hard to differentiate between them. So "ed" is used so that the listener knows that you are saying "and I"
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"ed io" is highly discouraged (Accademia della Crusca), because in it sounds like "e Dio" (and God in English). In modern italian it is mandatory to use the euphonic "d" only when there are the same vowels.
Es. we write "ed eccoci", "ed era", "ed Enrico"; "e Alberto", "e io", "e aprì", "e ora", "e Umberto".
But why duo is insisting in one sentence e.g "e io" and in next one "ed io". What is the purpose in confusing beginner students?
Ok I understand the answer but why do we need the "io" in front of "leggo"? "Leggo" implies "io", does it not?
I can't give you a textbook answer to that, but it would just be and sound odd without "io". Language is redundant. Perhaps to make it clear that we're talking about a different person. I'm not Italian, but it would be the same in Portuguese, which is also a Romance language.
I would assume because there are two separate noun-subjects, "I" and "she". Also I think it's to help people distinguish between them, but I think you're right that once we get use to those agreements, we don't have to use them except as a definitive statement.
It's an euphonic rule. If the following word starts with a vowel, use "ed" instead of "e". There are some exceptions like "e Eduardo", though.
Something is wrong with this sentence. I've said it correctly many times but it's not recognizing it and I can't go on or get out of it without having to redo the entire module!
There was no "I" box so it was impossible to answer correctly. Please fix this!!!
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I know there's no use complaining but I get SOOO TIRED of being marked wrong because of VERY POOR AUDIO!!
I hate this new woman's voice. She does not enunciate. WHY did they change readers?
- 2019
Her sound is terrible. She says i not il every time. I've reported it many times but Duo has not improved her diction.
- 2019
Her sound is terrible. She says i instead of il every time. I have reported it several times but Duo has not improved the sound quality.
Same here. And I find it particularly annoying because for learning Italian in general and for learning this lesson in particular, it is completely immaterial whether the speaker says il giornale or un giornale. If anything, it should be considered a typo
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Ed io is accepted here but not in other sentences. Does Duolingo ever respond to these issues?
This sentence has "ed io" The previous sentence has "e io" Are they both correct??? I thought with the vowel sound following it should be "ed".
Some "new" voices have been introduced recently (for me) which have really poor quality recordings and are difficult to understand because of it. This one in particular is especially poor.
My word choices didn’t give il, it gave un, which wasn't what they were saying!