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- Topic: Italian >
- "The sugar is in the coffee."
"The sugar is in the coffee."
Translation:Lo zucchero è nel caffè.
59 Comments
Welcome to the club lol.. They are so similar it's pretty easy to get a lot of the linking words mixed up... In that sentence "e nel" in Italian is "en el" in Spanish.. pretty easy no? Si!
Well, some words are very different, for example, in spanish "parrot" is "loro" and in italian "they" is "loro". It's confusing because it's the same word but it don't means the same. PD: I am spanish so I'm sorry about my english, I don't speak it fluidly ;)
I get Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish mixed up sometimes when I'm not paying attention.
My Portugese friend can usually understand me when I talk in Italian... even though he has never studied it!
I'm a little confused about this 'lo'. I thought that 'il' was the masculine definite article?
'lo' is used before words that begin with certain sounds, mainly s, z, and consonant clusters. Same for 'gli' (its plural). See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_grammar#Articles
"Lo - masculine, used before Z, S+consonant, GN, and some rarer consonant clusters."
That appreciably simple explanation (imo) is here : https://www.duolingo.com/skill/it/Basics-1/tips-and-notes
Thanks for the link - can't find this on the main website! Where should I look for more such clues?
In the sentence: il cuoco ha il formaggio nel piatto = the cook has cheese on the plate. > nel = on the. ????
The syntax is OK, but the usual expression differs. The Italians say "in the plate" instead "on the plate". Just another point of view. In Romanian we use both forms and both are correct.
Italian stare : essere ~:: Spanish estar : ser https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_copula#Usage_3 : "Stare refers to state rather than essence, but more narrowly than in Spanish. Essere is used for almost all cases in which English uses "to be"."
The difference between nel and nello is already covered in the thread: https://www.duolingo.com/comment/128052$comment_id=244251
The difference between nel and nello is already covered in the thread: https://www.duolingo.com/comment/128052$comment_id=244251
I have a hard time knowing when a word is "masculine" or "feminine". How can you tell?
You can't. "Masculine" and "feminine" are arbitrary names; we might as well call them "class 1" and "class 2" (and occasionally "class 3")--and some languages do.
There's usually no particular meaning to which noun goes in which class; there's not really anything you can do but learn them.
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It's "lo" instead of "il" before Z, S+constant or GN. This information used to be in the Tips and Notes of one of the chapters Basics, but the Tips and Notes are recently updated. This information is no longer mentioned.
How come it says in THE coffee but it says I'm wrong for writing "e il caffe"???
That would mean "is the coffee." "Nel" means "in the" so it includes the definite article.
I am doing this on my phone. It is hard...no impossible to get the accent marks exactly in the right place.
