- Forum >
- Topic: Italian >
- "Sei di luglio?"
60 Comments
I just asked an Italian colleague about this usage. She told me that you would not say this but would ask 'sei nato...etc'.
Except in Italian we're told to ask "are you of september?" is an accepted form. A bit like "are you a Libran?"(as in the star sign)
As we haven't done the past tenses, we ought not to be expected to use "Were you born" in an answer. Just a thought!
I wrote 'Are you born in July?' since the person is still living, and it is an EXACT TRANSLATION of the Italian. Yet, wrong.... Again, the "Duo schizo" mode is operative here.....
You can avoid all the complication by translating it as 'Sixth of July?' which it readily accepts ;-)
My only guess would be because saying the date like "july 6th" or "april 9th" isn't formal language
527
I googled. In Italian, days of the month except for the first are cardinal numbers. So it's "first of July", but "six of July".
Are you from july? is my answer, is it not right? "Were you born in july" means in italian :"sei nato in luglio?".
because it's an expression which uses the present tense of the verb, not the past one
Hey Amanda :) since the audio does not sound like a question, this also can be an affirmation right?
Okay, where in the italian sentence is the word "born"? I only see are/were you in July. Can someone clarify for me?
- 527
You wouldn't say "are you from July" in English to ask if someone was born in July. It's just not used. Some phrases need to be translated as whole phrases between languages because translating word by word doesn't work.
That's what I put, too. I think they ought to accept it. I will report it and see
Yes. Transcribed into IPA, those words would be [se] and [sɛj], respectively. The [e] sound sounds something kinda like the "i" in "did," and the [ɛ] sound sounds more like the "e" in "bed." Also «sei» ends with a bit of an "ee" sound or a "y" sound at the end, kinda like in the word "boy." Of course, English does not have great examples of these sounds. Portuguese has these two different "e" sounds; so does French and Catalan, but not Spanish.
This sentence gives NO impression whatsoever to "were you born in july"! That's "sei nato nel mese di luglio"!
I just had this as a speaking exercise.. It mistakenly thought I said 'Facebook' instead of 'Sei di'...
wish DL put a date when a post was made. because my answer here is "were you born in july" and it was correct. but reading from the post , most of the anwers are six of july
I said "Is it July?" and apparently the right answer is "Were you born in July?"
I'm so used to seeing 'Sei di' for 'you are from', last night just couldn't make sense of the translation until I clicked on the prompt!
