"Quanto è lungo un miglio?"
Translation:How long is a mile?
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I accidentally typed 'how long is a mule'. Sigh. It was not correct, if you're wondering.
And still it was the Romans who came up with the mile. When their legions where marching across the empire the counted the times the same foot hit the ground and marked of every time they had made a thousand paces (mille passus = 1 miglio), ~ 1 841 meters. That way the were able to make maps with correct distances between Rome and e.g. 'Parisium' or 'Londonium'.
Locals around the Empire soon adopted this and more or less every village, town and country began to define it's own mile. But Italy was also one of the first countries to abandon this system already in 1861 and today it's the metric system that's used all over Italy.
Italians know their history and e.g. Air Italia calls it frequent flyer program Millemiglia, - so don't go there and tell them the miglo is not important . . . or an English invention.
Thank you, Marninger, for the history...in my youth (about 50+ years ago), America intended to go metric, but there was protest, so the politicians did what politicians do...they caved to opinion.
As they counted a"passus" as the lenght between when the same foot tuched down their single step would need to be ~ 90 cm / 3 feet long.
Every country on earth uses the metric system, no wait the US doesn't.
Although it is mainly the US, I believe some parts of the UK and India still unofficially use a form of the imperial system.
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US and Myanmar (who only managed to change their name) and Liberia who plan to go metric, someday, maybe...
I believe the modern mille miglia rally is 1000 km long. However, the former mille miglia road race, last run in 1957, was roughly 1000 miles. So the question is, when Italians say 'miglia', do they mean mile or kilometre? The UK went metric from 1965, but the road signs are still in miles and the speedometers on cars are calibrated in miles per hour. The US, which has a lot of influence, still uses imperial measures. It's all muddled up!
The Mille Miglia race was established in 1927 in response to the Italian Grand Prix being moved from Brescia to Monza. The Mille Miglia race ran from Brescia to Rome and back in a figure-eight shaped course of roughly 1 000 Roman miles. A Roman mile was 1 000 paces counted when a legion marched from Rome to most other places around Europe.
Miles are not metric. However, a kilometer is a metric unit that is equal to 5/8 of a mile.
This sentence's structure is certainly awkward to an English speaker, with "long" coming after the verb: How much is long a mile? Constructs like this make learning Italian challenging, but I am determined :)
I tried to think of it like, "How much is along a mile?" Like asking "how much space is in a mile?" It helps me to understand the actual translation.
I love these structures. I say them in English in my head. Even simple things like "le donne mangiano" i think of as "the women they eat". Yes they are challenging to remember but i feel a little bit more Italian when i do this.
I thought "how far is a mile" sounded more natural to me, but it was marked as incorrect.
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I think of it as "How much is it long, a mile?" which doesn't work in English but makes more sense from a Spanish background.
They do that a lot hear we need to pay more attention to the words that follow. try lessening in regular voice and not in slow mode also remember if the word ends in (A) it is going to be UNA not UN. And again if it ends in (O) its is going to be UN
- 1243
Yep. I fell for it too. I was going to put "un" in as "miglio" ends in "o" which is usually right, but when I checked on the slo-mo, sure I heard "una", changed my mind, away went the heart. Arghhhhh! :/
Why couldnt the sentence be, quanto lungo e un miglio? is there some rule that im not aware of?
quanto = what quantity / how+much
è = is+it (/he/she/You)
quanto è = how+much is+it
quanto è alto = how+much is+it tall ~ how tall is it
quanto è profondo = how+much is+it deep ~ how deep is it
quanto è lungo = how+much is+it long ~ how long is it
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Thank you, Marninger. This is what I came to the discussion for. I didn't expect to see so much talk about miles vs metric, and whether they said un or una in the discussion! Your answer is very helpful!
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I knew it wasn't 'una' because miglio is masculine, but on the slow replay it sounded like 'una' to me, too.
While I find it frustrating at one level that it sound like una, it is a real test to put what I know is right and satisfying when I listen to my growing knowledge and not this error on duolingo.
- 731
Since 1862, the metric system has been compulsory in Italy. So I guess it might be possible for an Italian to ask how long is a mile, but I would expect they'd want the answer in units they understand.
Indeed. Expanding on my previous answer by plagiarizing from wikipedia, "La parola miglio deriva dall'espressione latina milia passuum, 'migliaia di passi'", where in this case, "passo", or pace in English, is the distance between two falls of the same foot while marching. So, a thousand paces. But since this would vary according to how hard the men were driven, they apparently standardized the measurement as 5 Roman feet in 29BC.
Absolutely- even though we know it should be un miglio, the slow version sounds like una.
You cannot say it like that in Italian
quanto = what quantity ~ how+much
è = is+it(he/she)
quanto è = how+much is+it
quanto è lungo = how+much is+it long ~ how long is it
quant è profondo = how+much is+it deep ~ how deep is it
Do Duo want us to type what we hear - or type what we think it should be?
the latter - even if it sounds like "una" you should be able to tell what it's supposed to be. if i said "a ostrich" you should be able to correct it in your head as "an ostrich" - same deal
Hi if your talking about (un or una) in their sentences and you are listening to the voice in slow mode it always sounds like (un) when it should be (una) if it is a feminine word use the (una). Feminine words end in (a) I hope this helps
If you want to see a good example of what I am saying try going back to the very first lesson in Duolingo I really think duolingo does this on purpose.
The end of the sentence is spoken so quietly that I can't understand it. And this is valid for many Italian sentences here.
This sentence structure doesn't make any sense and I don't see anyone in the comments who explained it. Someone save me!
Quanto/a ~ what quantity = how+much
è = is+it (/he/she/You)
Quanto è ? = How+much is+it ?
Quanto è lungo? = how+much is+it long ? ~ how long is it?
Quanto è profondo? = how+much is+it deep ? ~ how deep is it?
Quanto è alto? = how+much is+it tall ? ~how tall is it?
Quanto è pesante? = how+much is+it heavy ? ~ how heavy is it?
Quanto è grande? = how+much is+it big ? ~ how big is it?
Quanti/e = how+many
sono = are+they
Quanti/e sono? = how+many are+they? ~ how many are they?
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- But mind the difference in the following pairs
Quanti sono i bicchieri? = how+many are the glasses?
~ how many are the glasses
Quanti bicchieri ci sono? = how+many glasses there are?
~ how many glasses are there
Quante sono le uova = how+many are the eggs?
~ how many are the eggs?
Quante uova ci sono? = how+many eggs there are?
~ how many eggs are there?
Quanto costa = how+much he/she/it costs? ~ what does it cost?
Did ANYONE hear the woman say "UN miglio"? I listened 3 times, thought it couldnt be right to ask quanto e lungo miglio, but thats how it sounded. I really wish that woman could speak more distinctly. Ive never heard her pronounce the "L" when she says il.
How much is long a mile is the literal English translation. No wonder I am un po' confuso!
quanto (how+much) è (is+it) lungo (long)* =
how+much is+it long ~
how long is it
I think you can also say: "quanto lungo è un miglio." Not sure tho, but in Spanish this makes totally sense.
That is not the right word order in Italian. Think of it as "What is [the] length [of] a mile?"
DL rejects "What is the length of a mile," which I just submitted. I presume the reason is that the prompt does not say "il lungo di un milio" but simply "lungo un milio". DL wants us to distinguish lungo's use as an adjective from its usage as a noun. Fair enough.
The word order confuses me. Is this order correct also: "Quanto lungo (How long) è un miglio (is a mile)?" and if it is, what do these different forms signify?
quanto (how+much) è (is+it) lungo long) =
how+much is+it long ~
how long is it
I have tried to explain in greater detail in my previous comment
Why is it not "quanto lungo e un miglio"? The way it reads to me here is "how is long a mile".
My two bits
Far is an adverb or an adjective used to talk about distance or amount.
Thee sentence "How far is a mile?" is a question about distance. The answer would be an amount, e.g. "7 500 meters (the old German Reichsmeile) or "About 1 and ½ hours of walk".
Long is an adjective or an adverb used to talk about time, distance or length.
"How long is a mile?" is a question of distance and the answer would be either a length or maybe a distance e.g. "About 1 841 meters (a Roman miglia)" or maybe "It's a 20 minutes walk".
Quanto = what quantity ~ how+much
è = is+it (/he/she/You)
lungo = long
un miglio = a mile
How+much is+it long a mile? ~ how long is a mile?
Quanto è profondo? = how+much is+it deep? ~ how deep is it?
Sorry but the last word was miglio but it was very hard to recognize sounded more like gia dia
I might be half deaf but my good eat could not make out the word "miglio" on either the normal or slow versions. And even after I knew what it was, I listened again and it is certainly incomprehensible. I reported it.
Sorry but that is English, - with the words swapped to Italian words.
I made an attempt to explain this in a previous comment
A problem here is that there is the implication of converting the length of a mile into a different unit of measurement without stating the unit. For instance, a mile is 5,280 feet, or 1,760 yards, or 0.87 nautical miles, or six (6) furlongs, or about 1.6 kilometers. A visitor from Italy who is driving a car probably would expect the answer in kilometers, but the average walker has a stride of about 2.1 to 2.5 feet, so feet might be beneficial. The purpose of the sentence is to demonstrate grammatical structure. Somewhere there might be a question, "How much is a gallon?", so a similar problem exists. Just work on the grammar and syntax, and don't agonize over what may appear to be nonsense.
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Why quanto and not come? Quanto means how much, so I translatet how much is the length of a mile. How long is a mile sounds like: come lungo è un miglio.
Almost . . .
Quanto = what quantity ~ how+much
è = is+it (/he/she/You)
lungo = long
un miglio = a mile
What quantity is+it long a mile? ~ how long is a mile?
Quanto è ? = what quantity is+it ? ~ how much is it?
Quanto è lungo? = what quantity is+it long ? ~ how long is it?
Quanto è profondo? = what quantity is+it deep ? ~ how deep is it?
Quanto è alto? = what quantity is+it tall ? ~how tall is it?
Quanto è pesante? = what quantity is+it heavy ? ~ how heavy is it?
Quanto è grande? = what quantity is+it big ? ~ how big is it?
