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- "It is a man."
"It is a man."
Translation:È un uomo.
27 Comments
I chose "lo" from the drop-down translations of "it." "Lui" was not among them.
I agree. "It is a man" is different from "He is a man" in that the former implies that the subject was unknown before hand. Does this not work the same way in Italian? For instance, if an object approached through a fog and I suddenly realized it was a man, would I use the masculine pronoun in Italian where I would use the neutral pronoun in English?
In that situation (the fog) we say: "E' un uomo" i.e. he's a man. But we say also "E' un gatto" i.e. it's a cat. In other words we don't use "Lui" i.e. he nor "Esso" i.e. it but only the verb. Hope this helps! Bye Tony
What is the difference between l'uomo, and uomo? Last lesson said 'the man' was plain l'uomo. So man= uomo, and the man= l'uomo?
Uomo is the Italian word for "man" by itself, "l'uomo" translates to "man" with a definite article: "the man" (it's "l'-" because the noun starts with a vowel, otherwise it would be "il" as in "il ragazzo") and "un uomo" is "man" with an indefinite article: "a man."
"e" without an accent means "and" while "è" means "is" (3rd person singular conjugation of essere - to be).
I am new to Italian, I said ' lo e un uomo' is that right? Because when I hovered over the word it, it didn't say Lui. I am confused :P
Lui means him, lo means it.. The question is about the fact that for third person singular, the verb 'essere' is 'è'. This is only for 3rd p singular so its clear you're talking about 3rd p singular, therefore a subject can and will be left out in italian (you would also say 'sono un ragazzo', without the 'io', 'am a boy'). (I) hope i was clear enough :)
he, she, and it all use the verb è. You would need context to determine which one is being used. In this case they tell you it is 'it.'
If the answer is Lui…, then I agree with others that have said the original English sentence was incorrectly written. If the answer is È un uomo the I can understand that as being correct.
I keep thinking "sei"is supposed to go there, when it obviously doesn't... :(
Did the same thing third time 'round. I finished each time, of course, it's just, I don't want to leave the beginners section til I stop making silly mistakes. Like that one, heh. Glad to know I'm not the only one.
Why is it E un uomo? Doesnt that translate to "is a man?" Why wouldn't it be "lo e un uomo" because then it would have a subject?
In Italian (and Spanish, by the way), the subject of a sentence can be left out if it's just a pronoun or is easily understood. So while "È un uomo" only has three words, the "È" implies an understood he, she or it as the subject. It's just a quirk of the language.
Also, "Io" means "I" in English, and "è" translates to "is" (third person of be), so "lo è un uomo" translates to "I is a man". "Esso" is the Italian for "it", but it's usually left out if it's the subject of a sentence.
Oups, for some reason I read "there" that and then got flustered... Thanks for the comment :D
