29 Comments
in English we say "salt" and not "the salt", so should it be "l'ingrediente e sale" in Italian?, or is it obligatory to say "IL sale"?
In Italian, like many other languages, the article (the) is used more commonly. However, it is totally correct to say it both ways in both languages. Il sale, the salt, sale, salt.
I think the answer is that English is unusual in how often we use nouns without articles. Most other languages I've looked at (French, German, Portuguese, Latin) tend to use them more, even in situations when English doesn't. So, there will be lots of translations from other languages to English when you don't really need to translate the article, since English wouldn't use it in that situation. This is a perfect example of that - Italian requires you to use "il sale" but when it comes out of the English translator, the article disappears and you just have "salt." I think what is more bizarre than these little differences is that we can translate from one language to another at all! Languages are so different that it sometimes feels like translating is like to trying to explain architecture to someone through modern dance. What dance move translates to "Art Deco"?
Portuguese doesn't have article in situations like that. I'm a portuguese native speaker
1097
Whether or not we use the definite article for salt, it's odd to say "The ingredient is (the) salt" because we assume that there are multiple ingredients because you can't make anything edible with just salt. This sentence would probably be better translated as "The secret/special ingredient is (the) salt." If we say "the salt", we imply that it may be a special kind of salt, like seasoned salt or Jane's Crazy Mixed-up Salt.
italikaren & pjjoh, the translation to english is more of a rough idea what the italian sentence means, since no languages are 100% compatible. Hope that helped:)
I always forget that "ingrediente" is singular. I keep thinking it's a plural of "ingredienta". Luckily I remembered just in time. That and the article is different.
salt is the ingredient and the ingredient is salt, whats the diference, i wrote it the like the first sentence and i got it wrong, please explain!!
The sentences you put have the same meaning, but have a different emphasis e because of the order of the nouns salt and ingredient. In Italian, you can create the same emphasis by the order of nouns, or by the way you construct the sentence
I must have listened to that 10 times. There was no audible "L' " in front of ingrediente.
For "sale" it gave me: "goes up; go up; come up;comes up;climb" anyone else have this?
It can also mean that.
Just as English "like" can mean either "have good feelings towards someone or something" ("I like beer") or "similar to" ("it looks like water") - two completely different meanings that just happen to be spelled the same.
You can tell them apart because one's a verb and the other's a preposition, so they wouldn't occur in the same place in a sentence.
Similarly, "sale" can be either a verb ("it goes up etc.") or a noun ("salt"). Depending on how it's used in the sentence, you can tell which is meant.
I wish the bloody Italian speaker would ENUNCIATE CLEARLY. I missed the "L"
l'ingrendiante E il sale >>>> the ingrendient is the salt l'ingrendiante E il pepe >>>> the ingrendient is the pepper .
"lo" is used for masculine words where the S is followed by another consonant (among other conditions), but you don't need it if the S is followed by a vowel - just use the ordinary masculine article "il" then.
l'ingrediante E il sale , lingrediante E il pepe !!!!!! is it has two meaning ??? ( l'ingrediante )
La is feminine used with feminine words, such as la zuppa; the soup. il is masculine used with masculine words such as il gatto; the cat. Un is also masculine used with masculine words such as un cane; a dog. Una is feminine used with feminine words such as una bicicletta; a bike.
I just want to say, becouse somebody has to, that person who created this program does not possess basic understanding of structure and gramar of english language, and that leeds us to a confusion and incorrect perception of matter
Im sorry, but i cannot hear when this lady pronounces the entire sentance, and it throws me off. Fix this
- 68
I think in English 'the' is used for particular things, I mean when I say "the salt" it is "this special particular salt" and everybody knows which salt I am talking about. Am I correct? And in Italian is it not like this? What il, la or l' mean?
