53 Comments
the accent changes the pronunciation.. é is "close" you pronounce it like the first "e" in "example"...è is "open" and it's pronounced like the first "e" in "empty"..it's only about the é/è accents..other vowels only have the "open" accent..also, usually it's "...è"
It is very difficult to distinguish è, é and e based on the pronunciation - I use context to work out which one it is. First é doesn't occur on its own, only in words (usually at the end). Then, è and e can occur on their own but they mean different things - e means "and", è means "is"
We find the closed "e", e.g., in "perché" ( = because/why), in "pecca" (flawl, defect) . Also the "o" has two sounds (open/closed): for instance "colto", with the closed o, means learned, colto, with the open o, means picked, gathered, past participle of the verb cògliere (to pick)
Yes you can, in this case the use of "Lui" , the italian subject pronoun simply strenghten the subject. but as told before in italian we can omit the subject. here some reference : http://italian.about.com/library/fare/blfare113a.htm
Well, yes, that would be "he and a boy". The intended meaning wouldn't be too hard to guess though.
In French, "il" means "he" and "lui" means "him"/"her"; in Italian, "il" means "the" and "lui" means "he", so there's no relationship.
Oh. Ok. I was confused because in the first lesson it says "il ragazzo".
It makes sense because "Il ragazzo" would be "The boy".
So, "Lui é un ragazzo" would be "He is a boy".
I speak spanish, so not easy to learn it from english. Thanks.
Il is a definite article.. here you need to use a personal pronoun subject, that replace the name of the person. (Lui)è un ragazzo = (He) is a boy. e.g. Marco (Lui) è un ragazzo: Lui is He. if i wanted to use it with article, i said "the boy"= "Il ragazzo."
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How can I find the accents on my computer which has the English language keyboard?
- 123
On a Mac, (Option e) then e gives é. There is another key, possibly to the left of the Z key, which pressed with the Option key before a vowel, gives a grave-type accent.
During the lesson you can slow down the audio by clicking on the turtle icon or buy pressing "Ctrl + Shift + Space" on your keyboard.
Im rather concerned about the pronunciation of the "è"... I cant really pick it up, nor the difference between "é","è" and "e"
It is pretty similar. I usually have to use the context of the sentence to work it out. Also only è (is) and e (and) mean something on their own - é will always be part of a word - usually it's at the end of a word. Hope that helps
- 1941
If you're on a computer, just click the available characters below the text input area. If you're on a mobile device, long-press the relevant base letter to bring up a mini-pop-up menu and select the right character from there.
Can anyone tell me how do i say: we drink, you all drink, they drink Thanks
Ragazza is girl. Ragazzo is boy. Don't know why you think they're something else.
I wrote "he is a boy" and it got "wrong answer". I believe it was because I either did not write the H in caps o did not write the final dot. You should take this into consideration and give "he is a boy" answer as correct
- 1941
The discussion area is not the place to report this stuff. You need to hit the little flag icon and report it there. But Duo usually ignores capitalization and punctuation, so it looks like there was something else wrong.
There are several theories, but it must have been someone who didn't like kids: it either meant "servant", "errand boy" (e.g. Arabic raqqas = courier, Gaulish rao+gwas = little servant), or "ragamuffin", "bum" (e.g. English rag, Ancient Greek rhakos). It must have been common too, because the French settled on "garçon", which in Italian means "errand boy" (garzone).
- 1941
"He feels a boy" is grammatically fine, it just means something very different than "He is a boy".
- 1941
On your computer, there should be a bank of letters under the textbox.
On your mobile device, press and hold the letter and see what pops up.
