"The men drink water."
Translation:Gli uomini bevono acqua.
56 Comments
L'uomo, for singular. Gli uomini, for plural. Gli is the plural form of 'the'
In English, there is a single definite article for all nouns, "the." In Italian, (and many other languages) there are different definite articles for singular or plural, masculine or feminine nouns, but they all mean the same thing. It's also good to remember that in Italian, you will often include the definite article at times when it may not translate literally to English. This sentence above is a great example. Several people have told me that the sentence above is weird and that they would instead say "Gli uomini bevono l'acqua" which still translates "The men drink water." The article l' does not translate literally.
Back to your question.
L' is the definite article used in front of singular, masculine nouns that start with a vowel. Gli is the definite article used in front of plural, masculine nouns that start with a vowel.
Definite articles also include il, i, lo, la, and le. This page can explain it too and has a useful graphic near the bottom: http://www.woodwarditalian.com/lesson/definite-articles-in-italian/
I'm not a native speaker, so I can say if there are exceptions or irregular cases. Maybe someone native can confirm?
you (all) drink
You can find the entire conjugation here: http://duolingo.com/#/word/it/bere/Verb
You can click on the word itself when you're asked to translate. There is a button that is in green that should read 'conjugate'. Click on that and a chart will show up on your screen. Hope that helps.
which is the difference between "acqua" and "l'acqua"? when can I use both phrases?
I lost a heart for that too. But in the first lessons we are told to use l'acqua in that context.
My understanding is that it should always be "l'acqua" in this context and that "acqua" alone is strange. The article does not always translate over to English, so "l'acqua" doesn't necessarily mean "the water"
so in this lesson you are to use 'acqua' but in the first lesson you are told to include the article as in 'l'acqua' ? in a discussion about this on lesson 1 somebody said you use l'acqua because most of the time in Italian they include the article referring to the noun. But here no??
Why cant we write i uomini istead of gli ? ..what the difference between i and gli for plural?
Because it's L'uomo, so it changes to Gli. it's just the basic rule :( its more indepth than that but its just a basic on the fly description
bevete is for second person' plural form and bevono is third person' plural form
Can bevete be used only with "Voi" or with Tu as well? Bevete - (you) drink Bevono - (they) drink
"Voi bevete" and "tu bevi", check the link posted by naten: http://duolingo.com/#/word/it/bere/Verb
They never had 'gli' in my training until I did the strngthening exercises. Oy.
Не причам руски, разумеш ли српски? Ипак су словенски језици, има неке сличности
It's kind of like you start to make an L sound but immediately follow with "Yee." Anyways, here's the Duolingo thread on this: https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/10842963/How-to-pronounce-gli
What is the difference between "Gli uomini" and "l'uomini". It marked me wrong when I used L'uomini but I need to understand why it's wrong so I don't make that mistake again. Any help is greatly appreciated! Thank you in advance!
L'uomo- the man While Gli uomini - the men. One is singular, while the other is plural.
I wrote this before & was marked wrong saying that I needed to use l"acqua"-------bad form!
Duolingo is in consistant. To the phrase " The boy's drink water I put "i ragazzi bevono acuqa" Duolingo said the alternative answer was "i ragazzi bevono l'acqua". Wen they gave me the phrase "The me drink water" i answered "gli uomini bevono l'acqua" and duolingo said is was wrong and should be "gli uomini bevono acqua". surely if l'acqua is correct for one it should be correct for the other.
