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- Topic: Italian >
- "L'elefante è grigio."
32 Comments
Elephants are grey, except the soles of their feet which are yellow, so they can hide upside-down in bowls of custard.
Oh no...this made me remember elephant jokes.
When you use plural the the article is not contracted and it would be "gli elefanti".
what does that mean "the article is not contracted"? Probably a fundamental question but I can not figure it out. I thought the word had to follow the pattern of other words in the sentence, especially nouns
not contracted means there's no apostrope with a letter being ommited @leahjae
514
The "HINT" is in the word "è" (is). If "L'elefante" was plural, the "è" (is) would be "sono" (are). So, to recap, L'elefante è grigio singular BUT Gli elefanti sono grigie = plural. I hope that helps. The funny thing is, even with me supposedly knowing the above, I still responded incorrectly! DON'T GIVE UP!!
Would it not be grigi as male plural ends in -i? I thought -e was only used for female plural
- 392
Do you have to continue using American spelling ---not very good if you are learning English? NB Grey NOT gray
- 1190
Reminds me of a video i had as a child: Someone stole all the colors from the zoo and Rainbow Sparkles had to get them back. In the end, the elephant was still gray.
l'elefante--- singular and masculine use o grigio gli elefanti--- plural and masculine use i grigi
the gray woman- le donne grigie -fem, plural
I think the difficulty is with the e ending. It can be an ending for masculine, feminine and feminine plural. I have found that I just need to have repeated exposure to words that end in e. Then it starts to get easier.
Eventually, Your mind pays more attention to the article which helps you realize if the word is masculine, feminine or feminine plural.
This lesson follows the lesson on possessives, perhaps that lesson caused your mind to try to match endings. But even then it would be il mio elefante grigio.
I responded to your answer to help myself better grasp the concept. Hopefully, I have brought clarity and not confusion. :)
helpful link: http://www.orbilat.com/Languages/Italian/Grammar/Italian-Noun.html
I can't hear the 'is' however many times i listen to it. Don't Italians ever mishear between 'the grey elephant' and 'the elephant is grey'?
Could someone explain me when are words ending in e masculine and feminine? Thank you.
- 514
I was told that the assignment of the masculine or feminine gender to Italian words is totally random.
Grey must be accepted. Here's Miriam Webster quote: Gray and grey are both common spellings of the color between black and white. Gray is more frequent in American English, whereas grey is more common in British English. The varying usage of both grey and gray extends to specialized terms such as animal species (gray/grey whale) and scientific terms (gray/grey matter). Greyhound is an exception, which has a different derivation than the color.
