19 Comments
Should it just be "I write my family name"? "My family's surname" sounds redundant...
The "rule" has exceptions; for instance "mia madre" (my mother) has no article but "la mia mamma" (my mom) is preferred by dictionaries to "mia mamma", and "casa mia" (my home) is more common than "la mia casa". An interesting link is http://grammatica-italiana.dossier.net/grammatica-italiana-06.htm but it's in Italian so you'd need some translating :/
In this case, I would guess that la mia famiglia isn't necessarily an exception to the rule, as family is treated like a plural case (as family has multiple members)
Just like English, family can be many members, but it is singular. "My family IS nice", not "My family are nice"
Family surname? Odd choice, is that by chance for testing, or is this valid in Italian? His surname, alone in English works, no need for "family"
It accepted "i write my family's last name" which is much more natural to me than using surname.
But in some cultures the first name is the family name! And if a family name has more than one name, then it's a double-barrel surname!
in English, we talk about the family name, not surname, since a family can't have a first name! "I'm defending the honour of my family's surname!" would be laughed out of court.
Family name used to be correct!!! Again - I'm not here to learn English!!!!
My suggestion was I write a surname of my family. An indefinite article before word surname seems ok for me and should be considered as a right translation even if there is a definite article in Italian :)Thank you :)
"I write my surname" should be right. "I write my family's surname" sounds very redundant to me
I am returning to a question posted five years ago, because I do not think it was answered. The sentence construction for 'I write my family's surname' is, in Italian: I write the surname OF my family. Therefore, what isn't the answer: Scrivo il congnome DI mia famiglia. The answer given by DL is: Scrivo il cognome DELLA mia famiglia. Doesn't della mean of the (di+la). The is not used in this sentence - it is a straight up of -- so what della not just di?
