70 Comments
Why must you say its "own" food? If I am saying the animal eats its food the "its" already implies ownership doesnt it?
It's to translate "proprio" (its own) vs "suo" (its); I know the sentence is weird, it is in Italian too. Proprio is more often used with infinitive verbs, e.g. "bisogna fare il proprio dovere", all must do their duty, but "fai il tuo dovere", do your duty.
"Mangio il proprio cibo" as i eat my own food, instead of someone else's, seems very acceptable.
Quazar: Just like English: scenario: Sofia: Hey, Luigi, does the animal eat the other animals' food? Luigi: No, he eats his (or its) own food.
yes that confusing me too so I get mistake in first time so I did it as he said so but I stell not sure if that are right in english cause my mother language is arabic I came here to see what english people comment on that
Meal is any of the occasions for eating food that occur by custom or habit at more or less fixed times.
1623
No it is not. You use his/her only when referring to a specific animal (then you add the species too), and only when you have sombre connection with it (i.e. it's your pet or a book character).
"the animal eats its own meal" can someone explain why is this wrong? please
I have come to realize that there are many things that are specific in Italian as oppose to English. Your answer "the animal eats its own meal" in English could be interpreted as "the animal eats its own food" as well since when you eat a meal, you're eating food. This is not the case though because duolingo is asking for a specific term: food. So to answer your specific question, because meal in Italian is pasto, whereas food is cibo.
Hope this helps!
It explains my confusion as I only eat food when I need it and not meals. Reality Cheque
I answered with an "it's" and it told me the correct way was "its" is that an error or am i wrong?
- 416
"It's" is the contraction of "it is" whereas "its" is a possessive pronoun.
"It's food" = it is food.
"Its food" = the food for it/it owns
I was rather confused here having just completed the pairing up of words where Duolingo informed me that proprio meant really!
I was told earlier in this lesson that proprio was "really" and I was very confused when this came along. "The animal eats really food?" I gotbit wrong... please help.
Without the article, "l'animale mangia proprio cibo", it would mean really/precisely/indeed, although it would be a strange sentence, marveling at eating food of all things. As adverb, those are the meanings of proprio, but as adjective and pronoun it generally means own (see http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/italian-english/proprio for all meanings).
Proprio stands for ''really'' but then it's described as ''it's/her/my....own''.
"proprio" translates to "truly" "very" and "really" when i click on it? Are these alternate definitions and it also means "its own" or was this a mistake?
- 416
proprio as an adverb (without the article) means 'truly', 'exactly'. Ex. È proprio vero = 'it's true indeed'.
As an adjective (with the article), it means 'one's own'. Ex. Le proprie abitudini = 'one's own habits'
Why does it say proprio means real when u click on it? It made me get it wrong O.o
That is true, but if you look from the other side: "The cat eats his food" could both mean "The cat eats his own food" or "The cat eats the dog's/the neigbour cat's/etc. food", if you do not specify.
For example, my mother tongue has a special genderless possessive adjective, called "reflexive possessive pronoun", to refer to something of your own and not to some other person's belonging.
Actually in English it only means the cats it's his food. If you said "the cats eats food" then it becomes unclear. Saying "own" in English first specify who's it is, it merely accentuates it, or cab help make a point
@Indielover: What would be this special genderless possessive adjective in your mother tongue (slovenian?) ?
svoj (masculine singular) / svoja (feminine sg.) / svoje (neuter sg.)
svoja (m. dual) / svoji (f. dual) / svoji (n. dual)
svoji (m. plural) / svoje (f. pl.) / svoja (n. pl.)
Note that gender refers to the object, not the subject. And there are other forms according to the declension of the noun.
While "njen/-a/-o" (singular) stands for "her(s)" (the subject is female) and "njegov/-a/-o" (singular) stands for "his" (the subject is male or neuter).
So njegov and svoj both mean "his", but the first one is used when the (male and singular) object is possessed by someone else than the subject of the phrase. Is it right?
- 416
Because "the animal" in English is neither masculine nor feminine and therefore "it" is more appropriate. :-)
- 20
No in this case "its" means 'belongs to it'. <sub>It's</sub> means "it is". Very common confusion.
So why wouldn't this be right? "The animal eats their own food". Is it because in this instance animal is singular?
- 416
I am not sure what the meaning of your sentence would be. You have one animal who is eating the food it's been provided. Who would "they" be?
What I meant was that because we have declared that it is THE animal, meaning one, that their doesn't work since their is used more as a plural possessive rather than a singular possessive.
Don't feed the animals! Why not? The animal eats its own food, it's healthier for it.
Duo L. translates: 'The animal eats HER food' here. Very poor English. Animals are always IT...In this case the possessive 'ITS food' would be correct. HIS and HER possessive pronouns are strictly reserved for human beings. How we use language affects how we feel...if this senimentalisation of animals continues we implicitly lower our regard for our fellow human beings...
This seems more like opinion than based on any known fact. You can most certainly personify both animate and inanimate objects, and there is no rule in the English language to prevent you from doing so. Furthermore, the example is to show you that "il proprio" can either mean "his own", "her own" or "it's own" depending upon the context of the sentence or the conversation.
Why is "The animal eats it's own food" wrong when it is a case of possession.
