"Le sue caramelle sono nel piatto."
Translation:His candies are on the plate.
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There is no his/hers since in Italian the possessive adjectives refer to the gender of the noun being possessed and not the possessor. So the possessor's identity is dependent on context. My teacher explained it this way. In the context of a story about a grandmother buying a present for her granddaughter, there was this sentence: "la nonna ha comprato un regalo per il suo compleanno." Il compleanno (birthday) is masculine and takes the singular male third-person possessive. The sentence does not let you know if the grandmother bought the gift for her own birthday or for another's birthday. An alternative way of saying this in Italian that would provide possessive and context would be: "la nonna ha comprato un regalo per il compleanno di Anna"--the grandmother bought a gift for Anna's birthday.
Thank you- this is so helpful! How about "la nonna ha comprato un regalo per il compleanno di la sua [granddaughter], Anna"? OR "la nonna ha comprato un regalo per la sua [granddaughter] Anna [in honor of OR to celebrate] il suo compleanno"? Actually, in Italian would it really be correct to say that she bought the gift "for" the birthday? The gift isn't for the birthday but for Anna. I know that in some languages this would not work.
I think the first would be ok, just remember to contract di+la to della. The second I think is grammatically correct, but I'm not sure of the syntax and if it would seem like a run on to a native speaker. It would become, "la nonna ha comprato un regalo per la sua nipote, Anna, per celebrare (in onore del) il suo compleanno." This is a question I'm curious about. And my teacher, who grew up in Nrn Italy mentioned no qualms about per for the birthday as opposed to the person. Hope this helps!
Thanks, vtc! Can you put two nouns together in Italian to form a new word, as in English (I think this is called a "compound noun"...?) ie, could we form the word "birthday present" somehow in Italian? That would certainly make it simpler: Come to think of it, why not "La nona ha comprato un regallo di cumpleanno per Anna" and ALSO, wouldn't it likely be assumed that Anna was the granddaughter unless specified otherwise? I'm thinking this would work on the same principal as body parts are clothing which are assumed to be ones own: "I broke my leg" would likely translate to "I broke the leg" in Italian, non e vero? :) Grazie mille!
It all depends if we want to take the time to count the candy or not. When it is counted, as kids often do at Halloween in the USA. It is not unusual to say 38 pieces of candy or 38 candies. Both are accepted in the dictionary.
http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/candies?showCookiePolicy=true http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/candy?showCookiePolicy=true
Note that candy is defined as sweets. Caramella is defined as a sweet; so caramelle would be sweets
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I was told "his sweets are on the plate" is wrong, but it's actually correct, just British English
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I'm surprised that no one has commented about the third word spoken "caramelle". I listened a half dozen times and wasn't coming up even close to "caramelle" or maybe my hearing is really bad. :-(
Is there any possibility of "sue/sua" could mean your? I ask this because in both Portuguese and Spanish, su (ES) and seu/sua (PT) refers primarily to the 3rd person. However in informal conversations (at least in Portuguese) we use "seu/sua", which should refer to the 3rd person, addressing to the 2nd person, meaning "your"
"Sua mãe" for example would basically mean His/Her mother by the standard rules, but in fact if you would tell me "sua mãe" out of context I would think that you're talking about my mother, not his or hers. And I think it also happens in Spanish.
Can someone tell me more about it in Italian? Sue and sua are always "his/hers"?