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- "The girls drink water."
"The girls drink water."
Translation:Le ragazze bevono l'acqua.
103 Comments
Essentially almost any verb has to agree with the subject or it wont make sense. It's called subject-verb agreement. So anytime you see io, you know it's singular and because of that subject-verb agreement, the verb has to be singular too. That is why it's io bevo. The same applies to the rest, you just have to memorize which ending goes to which subject.
Here are the agreements as far as I know: For singular it would be o: Io bevo, which means I drink. Now for the many plurals! Tu bevi, you drink, would be i; Lei/Lui beve, would be e, her/him drinks; Loro bevono, they drink, would be ono; Noi beviamo, we drink, would be iamo; Voi bevete, you (all) drink, would be ete.
I would also like to add that if you see any of these endings in the verb, you should automatically assume which one that person is talking about. You don't have to say noi beviamo l'acqua; you can say beviamo l'acqua and mean the same thing.
These are general rules but remember there are always exceptions!
Grazie, it helps alot. I did not see any pkace shoeing the conjugation
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Lei/lui beve means SHE/HE drinks. "Her drinks" and "him drinks": these sentences are very bad English, grammatically incorrect. Do not use her/him anymore.
It helps when they give a new verb to click on the option "conjugate" and you can see all forms of the verb for the different subjects
If you are doing this as an app on your phone it doesn't give an explanation as it would on a pc.
if its I its bevo, you is bevi, the women/girls/boys/men is bevono. beviamo is for we, and beviete is for voi/you all
It's 'bevete', not 'beviete'. The insertion of an 'i' is only found in the first person plural forms of those verbs whose infinitives end in 'are' or 'ere'.
Why is l'acqua is an option here (I answered "le regazze bevono acqua" and it is correct as well. In my mind, since the English is "drink water" it should no translate to "l'acqua" at all.
I don't think it is a mistake, I just wish to clarify what's behind that.
It's optional. Just like in English, you can say to someone "The girls drink water" and "The girls drink the water"
If Duo wants you to translate l'acqua, then obviously you type "the water".
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Same issue. If they had wrote l'acqua, I would have put the water. But they did not and I was marked wrong
i thought it should say "Le ragazze bevono acqua" because it didn't say the water in the english version. I'm confused.
It seems as though this is an error in the program, rather than an optional way of expressing oneself in Italian.
Italian and English both have a 'definite' article. In English we just have the one word 'the', for all nouns, singular and plural. For Italian, the form of thebdefinite article will depend on the form of the noun it precedes (ie masculine, feminine, neuter/singular, plural).
Italian distinguishes between 'water' (could be any water) and 'the water' (indicating a specific water). All of Duolingo's examples up to this point in the Italian course have translated 'water' as 'acqua' and 'the water' as 'l'acqua'.
Italian and English are different from Latin, which does not have a definite article. A person has to read the definite article into the noun, depending on the context of the sentence. That's definitely NOT how English works, and it seems to me, not to be the way that Italian works either.
I believe that this is an error that needs to be fixed.
Why does acqua have L' in front of it? Its the girls drink water, not the girls drink the water. Misleading
This is the question. " The girls drink water " My answer, " Le Ragazze bevono acqua !
There is no definite article in the question, so I diddn't put one in the answer
But it marked my answer as wrong. .
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Hiw to know when to put l'acqua versus acqua - i.e. the men drink water versus the girls drink water.
It is the same for us (italian). But if you have to translate from Duolingo and he writes "gli uomini bevono l'acqua" it will be " the men drink THE water" If it write " gli uomini bevono acqua" it will be "the men drink water".
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The verbs are conjugated. bere is the verb "to drink". bevono is for the third person plural.
io bevo = I drink
tu bevi = you drink (singular)
lui/lei beve = he/she drinks
noi beviamo = we drink
voi bevete = you drink (plural)
loro bevono = they drink
The girls drink water = Le ragazze bovono l 'acqua The men drinks the water = Gli uomini bevono acqua
why does the men doesn't have l'acqua if its plural?
Most of the time when you have the articles Il/la/gli/le in front of nouns, it normally denotes a rhythm or cycle. Like for instance, "le ragazze bovono l'acqua" translates to "the girls drink water" or "the girls drink the water" depending upon context. It could mean that those girls drink that particular water every hour on the hour, or everyday at that particular time, or that those girls are drinking that particular kind/type of water
On the offchance you're still wondering about this ten months later, or if anyone else has this same question...
The word ragazzi means "boys", not "girls". The word you're looking for is ragazze. You also used the wrong article. Only use gli if the word is masculine and would take lo or l' in the singular.
il ragazzo > i ragazzi
lo zucchero > gli zuccheri
l'uomo > gli uomini
la ragazza > le ragazze
l'arancia > le arance
This is why it's important to remember a word along with its article: think la ragazza, le ragazze, not ragazza, ragazze. It all gets easier with time and practice.
Is the difference between il and le the fact that they are feminine and masculine?
Yes. Il is used for most masculine singular nouns (like ragazzo or telefono) and le for feminine plural nouns (like ragazze or arance).
masculine singular: il ragazzo, lo zaino, l'uomo
masculine plural: i ragazzi, gli zaini, gli uomini
feminine singular: la ragazza, l'arancia
feminine plural: le ragazze, le arance
It's best to remember which article goes with a word when you first learn it: il ragazzo, lo zaino, l'uomo, la ragazza, l'arancia. From there you can pick up a pattern.
Why is it wrong to say "Le ragazze bevono acqua"? Wouldn't that mean the girls drink water? And wouldn't "Le ragazze bevono l'acqua" make it "The girls drink THE water"?
Basically, I don't understand why the l' goes before acqua in this particular sentence.
I'm starting to think it has something to do with vowels at the end of a word before a word that starts with a vowel. I am probably wrong, though.
As far as I know, if the noun ends in an a you use the la. Example, la donnA, la ragazzA la melA, la torta...,etc. To puralize it, you use an le and an e. Like le donnE, le ragazzE, le melE le torte...,etc. Now there are exceptions like la carne so you will have to memorize these exceptions
"La" is used for feminine nouns in singular, while "Le" is used for feminine nouns in plural. La ragazza (the girls); Le ragazze (the girls).
Big help, what I thought. Is this the same for masculine too? If so, what is "the" plural masculine?
In italian you have two possible definite articles for masculine singular, depending on the starting sound of the word: il and lo. il ragazzo (the boy) lo spettacolo (the show) for the plurals, you use i when the singular is il and gli when the singular is lo i ragazzi (the boys) gli spettacoli (the shows)
"la" is feminine singular, "le" is feminine plural.
"il" is masculine singular, "i" is masculine plural.
However, when a masculine noun begins with z, s+consonant, ps, or gn the nouns begins with "lo" for it's singular and "gli for its plural form
lo studente to gli studenti,
lo zio to gli zii,
on that same note, with any noun that begins with a vowel, you combine the article and noun from il + noun to l'noun (you also do this for feminine), but with masculine nouns you will use "gli" instead of "i" where with feminine you will use "le".
l'amico to gli amici,
l'euro to gli euro,
l'inverno to gli inverni,
...
l'aranciata to le aranciate,
l'entrata to le entrate (in this instance you can also just use l'entrate),
l'ora to le ore (but not in this case),
l'amica to le amiche (the "ch" preserves the hard "c" sound..because the singular ends with "ca". the hard "g" sound is preserved when a word ends with "ga", to "ghe" as well)
Hope this helps more than it confuses!
If you are willing, you can spend $15 or so on a grammar book (I have Schaum's Italian Grammar) and they do an excellent job explaining these finer details.
I thought if its no "the" before the "water" then we can lose the "l' " before acqua
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Nobody can see what you typed. ;-( Copy your translation next time and then ask your question.
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There's no article in the English, so why "l'" in front of "acqua"? "L'" is an article.
I think the correct it is " Le ragazze beveno acqua". In the english sentence we don't have "the water" to translated as "l'acqua". Correct?
I made no mistakes note io bevo Lui,lei beve tu bevi plurals eg loro bevono voi bevete noi beviamo
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Your question has been answered several times on this page. Please read the comments before asking again.
Someone got anythinh that thorougly explains this in detail but not so much that it confuses the hell out of me. Most appreciated.
Bevo = I drink Bevi = You drink Beve = He / She drinks Beviamo = We drink Bevete = You (plural) drink Bevano = They drink
You just have to memorise the words! Most verbs have the same endings so they're pretty easy to memorise, however some verbs such as this one have their own format (so it's called an irregular verb) .
I wrote ragazze for girls and it said it was wrong because ragazze is feminine...but that's correct so why is it wrong?
I put "l'ragazze bevono acqua" and it said it was incorrect gender. Why? I thought " l' " could be used to any gender and it is short of "the"
Sorry, there is a little confusion there. I am italian, so you may trust me. The elision of the vowel in lo and la (l') is needed to avoid the repetition of the same vowel sound or a vowel cluster. L'ragazze is impossible for two reasons:
1 - As previously stated, you only contract when there are vowels at the beginning of the following word. You thus avoid the repetition of the same vowel sound (la amica) or the vowel cluster (lo amico) La amica (vowel repetition) becomes l'amica lo amico (vowel cluster) becomes l'amico lo uomo (vowel cluster) becomes l'uomo
the word ragazza begins with a consonant, so no repetition or cluster is generated, so you don't need any contraction.
la ragazza
2 - You only contract with singular nouns. That means you can consider l' as a contraction for la or lo, but not for le, or gli.
Le amiche gli amici gli uomini le ragazze
I hope it's clearer now ;)
it's wrong because you only contract il if there as a vowel after it like l'uomo or l'uovo.
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I put "l'ragazze" because that's what it said was correct but it marked it incorrectly. Why?
It's incorrect because it's suppose to be "le regazze". As far as I know, you only contract when you have like vowels like "l'uva" (the grape), "l'italiana" (the Italian language), "l'architetto" (the architect), dell'acqua (some water)...,etc.
I got confused when they had to correct me on this. Thanks to some other comments
This has nothing to do with the problem, but I wish there was more to spend the lingots on. I have 79, and nothing left to spend them on.
Donne = women
Ragazze/bambine = girls
Ragazza is a more general word for "girl", while bambina is usually younger.
whats the article for plural then ex: la ragaza, le ragazo and for plurals??
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La ragazze = the girl; le ragazze = the girls; il ragazzo = the boy; i ragazzi = the boys. The article for grammatical female nouns "la" becomes "le" and for masculine nouns "il" becomes "i". But "l'uomo" (the man) and "gli uomini" (the men) because this masculine noun starts with a vowel.
Why would it be 'le ragazze' instead of 'la ragazze'? I thought if it was feminine it was always supposed to be la?
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The article also changes to the plural: female la -> le, and l' -> le; masculine il -> i, lo -> I, and l' -> gli . You can read about this forms in the Tips and Notes.
Why isn't ragazze excepted?. The question does not specify whether it is a baby girl or a teenage girl.
