"L'animale mangia il proprio cibo."
Translation:The animal eats its own food.
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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
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).
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Meal is any of the occasions for eating food that occur by custom or habit at more or less fixed times.
"A meal" is "un pasto". "A starter" to a meal is "un antipasto". I remember years ago, before I was aware that languages develop in complex ways, coming across a recipe in an English language magazine for an "antipasto" dish and being surprised by the "o" ending to the word and to the fact that the word starts with "anti" not "ante".
I suppose "pasto" is cognate with English "repast", a very old-fashioned word.
"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 was rather confused here having just completed the pairing up of words where Duolingo informed me that proprio meant really!
That would imply some level of a personal connection, e.g. a pet or a relatable character in a story.
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?
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'
I answered with an "it's" and it told me the correct way was "its" is that an error or am i wrong?
"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
Why does it say proprio means real when u click on it? It made me get it wrong O.o
Wouldn't accept "their" as a singular pronoun. I know some people would agree, but it's common in English English; is it outlawed in American English?
Yes, nowadays we do use "their" as a singular adjective and "theirs" as a singular pronoun in England and throughput the UK, and I think people do in all English-speaking countries. We say things like, "I'm going to feed the animals and I'll be careful what I put out for them. Each must eat their own food". "Each" is singular and so is the "their" that follows it.
The English language is changing and this innovation may not be entirely accepted yet.
Is the word "proprio/propria" used for all the pronouns? So it's just the matter of gender, right?
This adjective has all the normal forms: proprio/propria/propri/proprie
il mio proprio cibo
la sua propria casa
i miei propri cibi
le sue proprie case
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.
@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?
Don't feed the animals! Why not? The animal eats its own food, it's healthier for it.
Is the word "proprio/propria" used for all singular and plural pronouns? So it's just the matter of gender?
