"The boy eats some sandwiches."
Translation:Il ragazzo mangia dei panini.
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220
I think D L is wrong. ....qualche panino or alcuni panini should be accepted.. Di plus the article to form 'some' is only used when the quantity is not finite or measurable/ countable. Eg I want some salt..Voglio del sale. Sandwiches are countable!
Partitive articles can be used with countable nouns as well.
For example, "La nonna ci ha regalato dei vestiti nuovi a Natale" ('Grandma has given us some new clothes for Christmas").
edit:
here's a detailed explanation of partitive articles by the legendary user CivisRomanus: https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/17998963?comment_id=18008480
395
Partitive articles can be used with countable nouns as well.
Do you mean in English or in Italian?
When I learned English 40 years ago, I've been taught they should be used ONLY with non-countables nouns, i.e. "some sandwiches" is wrong, and should be "a few sandwiches". Was it "old-style pure English"?
I was talking about Italian, but the same goes for the English determiner "some".
Throughout my school years (which were much more recent than yours) I was always taught that "some" is used with uncountable nouns and plural countable nouns. The Cambridge dictionary confirms that in an article about the use of "some": https://dictionary.cambridge.org/grammar/british-grammar/some
Okay so do the forms of "di" translate to possession (English version of 's) AND the measurement "some"
It's exactly the difference between "gli" and "i".
Keep in mind that the noun itself determines masculine vs feminine, singular vs plural. The specific form the article takes from there is determined by the word that comes immediately after the article.
gli elefanti
i nostri elefanti
https://dante-learning.com/eng/preposizioni-italian-prepositions-complete-guide/
In the Romance languages, the individual words "of" and "the" are put together and used the way we mean "some" in English. It's called the partitive.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partitive
https://www.thoughtco.com/partitive-in-grammar-1691587
395
OK about romance languages (I'm a native French).
But in English, I'm pretty sure that "some sandwiches" is a barbarism, because sandwiches can be counted. I've learned to say "a few sandwiches", or "bits of sandwiches". Or "some food", because you don't count food.
I have reported this item, but unfortunately on the report we can't tell what the problem is, it's only "something else went wrong".