"Ci abbiamo creduto."
Translation:We have believed it.
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"We believed in it." is accepted, but "We believed in ourselves" is not. But why? Ci means us, doesn't it?
Ci can also mean "at it" like the "y" in French, just as ne means "of it" as in the French "en". It seems that credere takes the preposition a after it, also as in French, and therefore the sentence literally translates to "We have believed at it." The ci here replaces a phrase that starts with "a" that would make more sense in context.
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Especially since 2 previous sentences (both used ci siamo) asked us to use "ourselves", and marked "it" as incorrect!
If you want to say "we believed in ourselves " i think you need to use the verb essere "ci siamo creduti " as J.F.Baaij says beloew
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If "ci" was to be translated as "ourselves" then it would be reflexive pronouns and it would require "essere" not "avere" to make the sentence...I guess.
i'm just a little confused why it's not Lo abbiamo creduto. Anyone else confused by this?
I think I have the answer for this, people who know are not explaining it well. "CI" is there for a reason and it doesn't mean "it". I'm still a learner but I'm pretty sure this is right.
In the case of "avere" {avere, ho, hai, abbiamo} it must have an object. In english we don't have to do this, this is why this is confusing. "Ci" is simply used as a placeholder for the object, it is "null" meaning it forces the verb to take no object.
"ci abbiamo creduto" means "we believed"
"lo abbiamo creduto" means "we believed it"
"non ci credo" means "I don't believe" or "I don't believe this"
"non lo credo" means "I don't believe it".
Also see http://www.wordreference.com/definizione/ci for definition in italian (this is case 3: pron. dimostr), technically "Ci" means "to this" but it's often implied in english.
Up vote this post if it helped you because I think this confuses a lot of people.
My year old post needs an update:
Credere is used intransitively meaning "believe":
Ci credo = credo a ciò = I believe this/it (ciò means this/that)
Gli credo = credo a lui = I believe him OR = credo a loro = I believe them
Le credo = credo a lei = I believe her
Ti credo = credo a te = I believe you
Credere is used transitively meaning "think+is":
Lo credo furbo = credo che lui sia furbo = I think he is clever
La credo più furba = credo che lei sia più furba = I think she is smarter / more clever
Li credo intelligenti = credo che loro siano intelligenti = I think they are intelligent
Ci crede felici = crede che siamo felici = he thinks we are happy
Lo credo = I think it is / I believe it is / I think he is / I believe he is
Ti credevo italiana = credevo che fossi italiana = I thought you were Italian (female).
Further information:
https://litalianoacasatua.com/lo-credo-gli-credo-le-credo-la-credo/
This comment is wrong. The answer to it done by the same author explains it better.
"ci" is simply a pronoun which means "a qualcosa" and the thing referenced by it is inferred from the context.
I think DL should post more grammar rules. Especially does clitics. They are really difficult
Do remember this is a free service. We get the grammar rules by helping each other and sometimes we get the help of a vounteer native speaker.
"ci" is the "in it" (it can be many other things like "about it", "of it", "there" etc.)
Yes, and here is used "avere" so this means that in this sentence "ci" means "it"
Credere a qualcosa, credere qualcosa. Both are fine, even though the first is more common. That's why you can use both "ci" = "a esso" = to it and "lo" = it.
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Probably the underlying verb is crederci: http://www.wordreference.com/iten/crederci It is transitive, so comes with avere. Quite confusing though...
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Dick, the Italian, which we are given first here, can be translated as "we believed it". On the other hand, it can also be translated as "we have believed it". That is grammatical English and is used by native speakers when appropriate. For example:
"Will he run again in 2024? We have believed it up till now, but the recent poll numbers cast doubt on the matter".
Sounds like "caduto" and not "creduto" which would make this sentence completely grammatically incorrect since with "cadere" you would say "ci siamo caduti."
I'm guessing that would be "Ci siamo creduto (or creduti)", but I'm not 100% certain...
Because there's no word for 'them' in the sentence. "We believed them" would be "Li abbiamo creduto."
If a native Italian speaker would please help out here:
We have believed it = Ci abbiamo creduto
We have believed in ourselves = ____
Look at stadden.ho's answer above. It's excellent. Since credere is normally followed by 'a', to be consistent, 'ci' replaces it. Ci therefore does not mean 'us' in this context.
Can anyone make this into an English sentence that follows the Italian translation?
VERBI PRONOMINALE - CREDERCI (To believe it) - https://www.dummies.com/article/academics-the-arts/language-language-arts/learning-languages/italian/conjugating-italian-verbs-with-ci-164192