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- "Voi siete donne."
38 Comments
This is one of the most irregular verbs in Italian. Essere = "To be".
Io Sono = i am.
Tu Sei = You are.
Lui È = he/she is.
Noi Siamo = We are.
Voi Siete = Y'all are.
Loro Sono = They Are.
879
Small error. Lui means he, not she. Lei means she. Essere is a difficult verb in every language. Thank you!
This is the concept of conjugating verbs. We have it in English, but it is more difficult in Romance languages. The only good example I can think of in English is the verb "to be". I AM, You ARE, He/She/It IS, We ARE, They ARE. In Italian, conjugating the verb depends on the end of the infinitive, and then there are irregulars, and it's too much to explain in one comment. http://www.verbix.com/languages/italian.shtml Try that website. Hope I could help :)
Duolingo is trying to express a concept we don't really have in English - a plural second person pronoun. The most common way to express that in English is "You all" but that doesn't get used much, so it sound clunky.
However as we are trying to learn Italian in this unit (not English), I forgive them... The difference between tu (singular) and voi (plural) is an important thing to learn.
Perhaps you don't understand how we say this in everyday English if English is not your first language. In old English we used to say "Thou" for you and "You" for plural you. We dropped "thou" and made everything "You". So for plural now, depending on what part of the country you're from, you have different ways of saying a plural "you". In the south and in rap songs it's "y'all", short for "you all", which is used mostly in the rest of the U.S. Some say "you's guys, you guys". So in order for Americans to understand this concept, it's easier to replace the Voi conjugation with it's american English equivalent meaning to better associate how to use it.
Wait a second now! So Voi is the plural of tu? I thought voi was just a formal way of saying tu. If that's the case, is there a difference between the formal/informal second singular person in Italian?
- 424
"voi" is just you plural (y'all).
Nowadays the only formal personal pronoun is "Lei" as formal "tu" (you singular), for both genders.
Until 100 years ago there were also "Voi" and "Loro" (nowadays n̶e̶v̶e̶r rarely used as formal forms).
• "Voi" > formal you (1 person)
• "Loro" > formal you (2+ people)
100 years is not a long time, so they are still used
- 163
Not necessary to add "all". Siete is plural already. Ladies supposed to be an acceptable translation as well as women for the italian donne
- 879
No, that's impossible. siamo is the conjugation for noi (we). voi is "you" (plural, a group of people you are talking to). It's voi siete.
- 248
No.
The Italian word for 'all' does not appear in the sentence. The English plural second person pronoun is 'you' - not 'you all', not 'y'all'. Look it up in any reputable English grammar book.
- 879
No, they is loro. voi is the plural you, when you are speaking to more than one person. When you speak to one person you use tu.
I don't really understand why "ladies" is unacceptable to Duolingo as an alternative for "women". It is, to my way of thinking, more polite. It is not, as far as I know, politically unacceptable, ... yet.
- 879
As far as I understand it, Duo only wants to allow "lady" as a translation of signora. You see a woman (donna) and you say to her: Buongiorno signora.
This question is quite a tricky question and I got it correct,yay i tried my best to get it correct woooo!!
