"Spesso ho ospiti in casa."
Translation:I often have guests at home.
62 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
365
We (AU) always talk about "having visitors" - we would rarely speak of "having guests" unless in a formal context. Regional differences, I guess.
113
'Ospiti a casa' just means 'guests at home'. The point, according to me, should be to always try and translate as literally as possible, so that the sentence makes sense in both languages and the lessons Duolingo wants to teach are learned. Since there is no need to translate 'house guests' here, which by the way is transforming two nouns in Italian to one in English, you can just go with what the Italian actually says.
406
VERY often DL expects the literal translation which sometimes makes little sense in english.
1652
In English a sentence can begin with the word"often" so "Often i have guests at home" should be accepted. Besides, the meaning is correctly conveyed and it's not my English that's being tested!!
892
I wrote "Often I have guests at home". It wasn't accepted. Why not? This phrasing is common in spoken English.
One possible reason "houseguest" would not be correct in this instance is because that would leave of the location of the guests. The sentence is constructed in such a way that there is both an object (the guests) and a location (at home).
Additionally, I don't think "ospiti in casa" can translate into "guests of house", (ie, houseguests). To use that construction, it would need to be "ospiti DI casa", which I'm not even sure is a proper term in Italian.
Finally, "in casa" is one of those unusual constructions like "in bagno" or "in doccia", where there is a "missing" article that is implied. "In bagno" means "in THE bathroom" and "in casa" in this construction means "in the house" or "at home".
149
I simply translated it into "I often have guests at home (a casa)" without wondering about the implications others have noted previously. But I live in Canada and to me the phrase is quite inclusive. To us, anyway, guests can mean anything from paying customers to friends for coffee. I simply assumed the same could be understood from the Italian. I do want to say however, that DL is quite inconsistent in its expectations of literal or idiomatic translation. I've noteced that quite often.
1533
We have been taught that adverb should follow the verb. Here it precedes it. Isn't the sentence Ho spesso ospiti in casa correct?
Forgot about this question until I got it wrong again for putting "House guests" during strengthening. The previous question takes "Companion of my room" into "Roommate", another takes "Companion at work" into "Co-worker", so taking this to "House guests" seems right. Again, it may be a regional thing, but that is what they are called where I grew up.
1253
I used I often have guests in the house and it was not accepted. The prompts probably should not have suggested "house" as a translation for casa, but after all, house is a translation for casa, so what's the problem with using it?