"La carne viene dall'animale."

Translation: The meat comes from the animal.

[GregHullender]

Can't this also mean "Meat comes from animals?"

[dindooon]

Animale: animal
Animali:animals

from the animal: dall'animale
From the animals: dagli animali

i think..

[GregHullender]

Not sure what I was thinking when I posted that question . . . but you're 100% right, of course. Have a lingot. :-)

[nattys422]

I don't understand the gender difference between 'dal' and 'dall' '?

[SamuelEHarvey]

Actually, I think dall' is da+l', so since it's l'animale, it becomes dall'animale.

[undomielle]

Yes actually I agree. I read that da + lo stays as "dallo". Besides it's not "lo animale". It's "l' animale". dall' comes from da + l' indeed. I think this table is helpful: http://italian.about.com/library/fare/blfare153a.htm

[Zchbaniel25]

Thanks.

[f.formica]

There is no gender difference: dal is da+il, dall' is a truncation of dallo (da+lo). So just follow the rules of those articles.

[MDL421]

But the article before "animale" is "il" not "lo."

[LatecomerLaurie]

Actually it is l'animale, not "il" or "lo"

[Rondinella01]

Grazie mille!

[Caputmortuum]

i don't understand when da means 'from' or 'to' like in 'leggo all'uomo'. why can't I say 'the meat comes to the animal?'

[f.formica]

In leggo all'uomo the preposition is 'a' not 'da' ;)

You're perhaps thinking of cases such as "Vengo da te" (I come to you), but in that case 'da te' means "where you live" rather than identifying 'you' as a destination; for instance you'd say "Da me manca la corrente" (In my home there's a power outage) without implying movement.

Try not to focus on the association between prepositions in the two languages; they're often used for different purposes and in most cases you can't assume a direct equivalence.

[Chris123456]

I think that is really good advice - prepositions are not equivalent in the two languages. I found it really difficult to begin to appreciate where the differences are. This http://duolingo.com/#/comment/233855 links to some useful resources for you.

[Sassicat]

You use dall' in front of a word that starts with a vowel. e.g. L'anatra would become dall'anatra, or all'anatra. Its nothing to do with 'lo'

[m1c45]

where else is the meat gonna come from the garden

[jarinhumphrey]

I just muttered a bunch of gibberish and it counted it right...but when I actually say it right, it's wrong. What the heck. Lol I'm glad Duo doesn't take hearts for this or most of us would be screwed.