"I primi ad arrivare troveranno i posti migliori."
Translation:The first to arrive will find the best places.
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173
OK. So when does migliore translates as best and when does it mean better. It seems to me it could be used either way in this sentence. I have missed the translation countless times.
1118
It seems that "seats" should be accepted as a translation of "posti" in the context of this sentence.
English doesn't tend to double the subject the way Italian or French can. In speech, we might say 'The first to arrive, THEY will find the best places' for emphasis, for example to disagree with someone who says the people coming last will, but it's quite informal. Normally if there's a subject we don't double it with a subject pronoun.
632
Why do we need the ad? Could we say 'i primi arrivare' for 'the first to arrive'? Isn't arrivare = to arrive?
You're trying to translate word for word and it doesn't work that way. In English the verb is ''to arrive'', but in Italian, you can consider the verb to be the equivalent of ''arrive'' alone without the ''to''. So you need to add ''ad'' for it to make sense, otherwise it's like saying ''the first arrive'' in English.
178
For me, as a German this sentence sounds so weird.
I would say: The first who arrive, will find the best places. Why to arrive?