"I cani non mangiano il cioccolato."
Translation:The dogs do not eat chocolate.
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Is the article is necessary here? In other sentences without article were also correct
In Italian, it's more common to see the definite article used to indicate the general case. In English, we'd say "Dogs do not eat chocolate" as a blanket statement. In Italian, the same blanket statement is expressed as "I cani non mangiano il cioccolato."
You can say: I cani non mangiano cioccolato if you want to state that chocolate is not part of dogs' diet.
Is this like how in French the statement would be "Les chiens ne mangent pas le chocolat"?
If I remember aright, it would be 'Les chiens ne mangent pas de chocolat'. All forms of the definite article become "de/d'" in a negative statement.
That's correct. In negative sentences using the partitive, de is to be used -> Les chiens ne mangent pas de chocolat. https://grammar.collinsdictionary.com/amp/french-easy-learning/the-partitive-article-du-de-la-de-l-and-des
That's not quite right.
"De" simply means "of". It is not a variation of the definite article.
"Les chiens ne mangent pas du chocolat", where "du" is the merger of "de" and "le" in French. Literally "The dogs do not eat of the chocolate". Generally "du/de la/des" (de + les) is the partitive, roughly comparable to the English "some" but not used in all the same contexts.
I don't think so. I think in French they just use the definite article more in general.
Because we are (probably) talking about an action that is taking place right now. "The dogs are eating the chocolate (which was not meant for them)"
I don't think so, because the sentence is "the dogs do NOT eat the chocolate" and given a choice, I've never seen a dog not eat something.
It could be sort of a culture kind of thing. Like it's correct even if you don't include the article, but the typical Italian will include it. Itd be sorta like having an american accent to not include the article maybe, if you will...
Chocolate is definitely toxic to dogs. Too much of it can kill them.
"The dogs can not eat chocolate" would be "i cani non possono mangiare il cioccolato."
English uses the auxiliary "do" when we want to emphasize something (I do eat chocolate), negate something (I do not eat chocolate), or ask a question (Do I eat chocolate?). In Italian, they just negate the verb directly: non mangiano, literally "not eat." To say "can not eat" involves bringing in an entirely different verb, one that means "is able to," and then negating that.
Some lessons, "il" is accepted in front of the word (il pane, il cioccolato" and sometimes not. Why is this?
Here is quite an extensive explanation about the Italian definite articles:
https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/20945484/Rules-on-Italian-Articles
Why, in this case, for the phrase "the chocolate" is it "il cioccolato" and not "al cioccolato"?
"Mangiare" is a transitive verb and requires a direct object (ie that answers to the question: who/what), therefore the simple article is required. "I cani mangiano [cosa?] il cioccolato". "Al" is the contraction of "a + il" and means "to the" :-)
To add to what Muttley_ said, perhaps you're thinking of previous lessons that spoke of "banane al cioccolato"? In that case it's because chocolate is a component part of the banana (banana prepared with chocolate). Here, the chocolate is all there is.
I have double checked my spelling in this sentence and it appears correct and yet it is telling me i am wrong, i have had this several times, has anyone else had this problem?
I thought "il" meant "the". The translation does not mention "the". Annoying
Yes, "il" is one of the words for "the" in Italian. But translation is not about blindly swapping out words in one language for words in another language like a cipher. Different languages say things differently and have different grammar rules.
I wrote "The dogs don't eat the chocolate" The translation above and what I wrote have different meanings. Yet both are technically correct.
No one here has the ability to deal with technical issues. Next time something like that happens, try rotating your screen to see if more tiles populate the word bank. You can also take a screenshot and file a bug report:
https://support.duolingo.com/hc/en-us/articles/204728264-How-do-I-report-a-bug-
This the users' forum. We can help you with question about the language.
For technical issues, please use the proper report function.
That would be i cani non possono mangiare il cioccolato.
'can' = potere (posso/puoi/può/possiamo/potete/possono).
dogs should not eat chocolate as its poisonous to them, so it should read "dogs should not eat chocolate"