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- Topic: Italian >
- "Posso pulire i pavimenti?"
21 Comments
466
Elena, it sounds like an act of contrition; the bugger is clearly guilty of some misdeed!! 29Jan16
British English: I'd say "may/can I clean the floor" even if it referred to several rooms. Floors plural means different stories in a building.
I'm also a Native english speaker from Canada, and I think it's also correct and sometimes more clear to say "I can clean the floors"
Really. There's absolutely no difference between "Can I clean the floor," and "Can I clean the floors." (American English here, too.)
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Also US English: "May I" requests permission ("May I help you?") while "Can I" refers to physical capability ("Can you reach that?").
Just to be sure, after "posso" you use the infinitive form of the verb? So for example: Posso mangiare, posso lavore etc?
*Disregard the question it has already been answered"
Correct. We use the infinitive form after the 3 modal verbs (in any verb tenses and modes): potere, dovere and volere. All of them are irregular. They are conjugated in Presente Indicativo like this: Potere -> posso, puoi, può, possiamo, potete, possono. Dovere -> devo, devi, deve, dobbiamo, dovete, devono. Volere -> voglio, vuoli, vuole, vogliamo, volete, vogliono. It's a shame that these important verbs aren't mentioned until now. They should have a long explanation.
Ehm where did you come up with "vuoli"? probably a typo. it should be "vuoi"
The Italian Wikipedia list 4 modal verbs, the fourth being
sapere (nel senso di 'essere capace' 'essere in grado di').
Ok so potere, dovere and volere are the 3 verbs that are followed by an infinitive form. Thanks :)
It's important to mention that not only these verbs can be followed by an infinitive, but these must be followed by the infinitive. Here is a good explanation about modal verbs: http://italian.about.com/od/verbs/a/italian-modal-verbs.htm
i didn't know what pavimenti meant, but when i hovered over the word pavement came up, not ground, so it wasn't possible to get this one right!
I had the multiple choice (with pictures) question first so I knew it meant floor. They should introduce new words like that first then use them in translations
Since the most likely intended translation had to do with cleaning household floors, not sidewalks on either side of the pond, the dictionary hints should have included floors.
