"It is her dog."
Translation:È il suo cane.
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how is cane masculine and not feminine. it ends in e. wouldnt it be e il sue cane?
You don't. "It's his dog" would also be "E' il suo cane". It's like in English where you can't tell the gender of the owners from "it's their dog". In Italian, suo vs. sua tells you the gender of the object being owned, not that of the owner.
So, the possessive has to deal with the subject not to the gender of the dog's owner?
I think it doesn't matter what the gender of the dog is. The word dog in Italian, cane, is a masculine word so you always use 'il' when talking about a singular dog.
No, the article "il" is necessary here. In general, his/her = il suo/la sua/i suoi/le sue. In some cases the article is dropped (for example in front of family members: "sua sorella", and not "la sua sorella", suo padre, sua madre, etc.).
Thank you for explaining that giuliap. Can you tell us what other cases would we be able to drop the article?
Because cane is masculine. If you wanted to refer specifically to a female dog, you'd say cagna.
That has a slightly different meaning, namely the dog is hers. Which is a perfectly good answer to whose dog is that?, but not to what is that thing that she is carrying?
How do we know that it's her dog, not his dog? Isn't "It is his dog" will be "È il suo cane" aswell? I'm totally confused with this at the moment.
I think I've sussed it. In English we give the pronoun gender, in Italian you give the noun gender. I and you does not have gender, so why should he, she and it not just be simplified to "it". Makes sense. Yes? No?
E il suo cane is the given answer...is this just another example of Italian being a man's language? That we dont know it is a woman's dog?
It just means that the word cane is masculine. The sentence "It's his/her flower" would be E la sua fiore. In both sentences, the gender of the owner is irrelevant.
How can anyone tell what is feminine or masculine. This seems impossible to determine
There are a few tricks, like recognizing that nouns ending in "o" are almost always masculine and those ending in "a" are almost always feminine, but ultimately you have to memorize things. One tip, however: Instead of just remembering that cane means dog, try memorizing that il cane (and not la cane!) means "the dog". After a while, your brain will automatically associate the word cane with masculine articles, pronouns and adjectives.
Yes, but that has nothing to do with the sex of the owner. There is one dog, either male or of unspecified sex (which defaults to the masculine word cane), belonging to a person who might be male or female.
Also, you posted two identical messages. Please delete one (or maybe both) of them.
Because the word cagna, meaning female dog, is rarely used. The default word is cane, even if the dog happens to be female. It's the same in English. You wouldn't regularly say "It's her bit**", would you?
Exactly the same way. The Italian sentence doesn't indicate the sex of the owner.
If it is a female dog can you not use "la cagna?" I know that out of context it is a parolaccia buuuuuuuut...