- Forum >
- Topic: Italian >
- "Il coltello è nello stivale."
301 Comments
The minute I saw this sentence I immediately wanted to know what the comments were about.
Exactly! sometimes I read the comments because I've a grammar/usage question, and sometimes because I think the comments are going to be fun because the sentence is so....odd.
I imagine the duolingo team making up sentences like this, so that when they are bored they come here and read the comments
Honestly we learned in my italian class that Sicily is the stronghold of the Mafia, and nothing goes on there without their say-so. So really, its true that messing with a Sicilian might not be the best idea
Never engage in a land war with asia. And never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line. Great film
Don't mess with a Sicilian when death is on the line. Hahahaha hahahaha h......
Possible book titles: "How To Survive In A Dark Alley 101: by Duolingo" "Mission Impossible: Use That Insole!: by Duolingo" "You Don't Need A Hero: by Duolingo" "Preparing For A Night Out: by Duolingo" "Hunting Tips - The Deers Will Never Know!: by Duolingo" "Don't Forget These Tips: by Duolingo"
Someone once suggested using Duo's rather odd sentences as the first sentence in a novel. You seem to have made a good start. I vote for "How to survive..." can't wait for the book signing.
It's actually a very good learning trick. Creating a vivid, often times weird or shocking mental image helps information stick. That's why I ♥ duo. They have the neurobiology of learning sneaked in the courses so elegantly!
Brava, Christie! You're completely right! Personally, it's helped me with more than just languages and is fun to think of lol. Lingot for you~.
Thanks a lot! Massive biologeek (biologist + geek!) here. The science behind the learning process itself really fascinates me! I've completed a MOOC from coursera recently, "learning how to learn" and I've learned tons of techniques and tricks for effective learning. Ciao my fellow duolingeek and thanks again for the lingot love!
No problem! Ah, I see! I think it's pretty fascinating too, I didn't really think of the science aspect of it all until I saw your comment, but it's definitely handy and incorporating it will definitely benefit everyone. But the course sounds cool, I'd love to take such a course! But that's wonderful :D~. Ciao ciao fellow Duolingeek! No problem! You deserved it~, I like handing them out whenever I see a cool comment/post because I never use 'em and even if I did I just like to naturally hand out things or applaud someone, it's fun for some reason lol. ^^ And people usually deserve a little recognition, y'know?
My english teacher does that a lot, though it's mostly to fit as much new vocab into a sentence as possible. It does however lighten the mood during a test when you have to translate a sentence like "You're not allowed to chew gum here, but it'll be better if you scratch you kidney." (We actually had that one by the way.)
Dear Duolingo, my knife is ON my boot RIGHT NOW....how dare you mark me wrong?
634
When i learned english it was "the book is on the table" I guess it's diferent for Italian
The knife kills the snake, the snake craps in the water, the water rusts the knife.
It's funny because Italy is shaped like a boot so I wonder what this could mean.. @v@
Is it customery to keep a knife in one's boot when in Italy? I'm planning to go in a few months and I don't wanna offend... How will I get this boot through customes? O.o
- 2418
In ancient Hungary the peasant youths kept their knives sticked in the bootleg much alike the Scots do it with their sgian dubh -- just to have it handy when it comes to a nice stabbing.
is it incorrect to write: il coltello e nello mio stivale (to explictly denote MY boot?) it seems that in most Italian conversations the possessive is understood and not mentioned, but i was just wondering if it's wrong to say it this way.
If you wanted to use a possessive, you'd have to say "nel mio stivale" or "nello stivale mio" because the use of nel/nello depends not on the object the knife is in, but on the first letter of the word. This is a general rule for the two masculine articles: when the first letter after the article (or article+prep) is s (+consonant), z, gn... use lo, not il. Here are some examples with just the article:
lo zucchero bianco/il bianco zucchero
lo stivale rosso/il rosso stivale
lo squalo bianco/il bianco squalo
Molto grazie, mukkapazza- this is very helpful. So you are saying that the adjective can come EITHER before or after the noun?
Give a check to my FAQ, Elena... I am putting together all the links of questions that are made very often!!!
http://duolingo.com/#/comment/233855
Anyway... You can say things like "il bianco squalo" but they sound strange. ;)
In this case, is the possessive understood at all? There is nothing to imply it here without context.
During the '60s and '70s, Italians made a bunch of western movies (ex: Once Upon a Time in the West, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly). They were called spaghetti westerns :-)
On the other hand every time I see "coltello" and "stilvale" I know them without thinking. No, to mention some of the other odd statements. And get a good laugh. There is "method in the madness" me thinks. :-)
La serpente è nello stivale (I dont know if this is grammatically correct but it had to be said)
In multiple choice, I selected both "in the boot" and "on the boot" and I got it wrong. :( I thought "nello" meant "in" or "on".
Ah, you almost opened up a long linguistics discussion :) Prepositions are confusing because each language and speaker applies them subjectively. As you've already seen, they don't always translate direction from one language to the next. Do you say in or on a plate? Sul piatto or nel piatto? Both work in either language, one is just more common than the other. A plate is flat, but it is also a type of container.
Here nello is the correct answer because you put feet in shoes, not on shoes, and that's a little harder to argue than whether food is in or on a plate.
I hope that made a bit of sense!
I'm no linguist so anyone should feel free to correct me on this but it seems to me that in English there are, well, rules might be too strong but at least conventions about which prepositions can be used when. For instance I think usage of "in a plate" would be very, well, unusual. (It would be understood, but strike people as odd.) One complication here, of course, is regional/national differences. British usage seems to endorse "different to" whereas in American it's "different from" or maybe "different than." "Different to" always sounds wrong to my ears but I hear it all the time on the BBC. And the conventions are somewhat arbitrary, as shown by the 'different to'/'different from' question. One just has to learn which is used when. So I'm wondering if it's the same way in Italian - that at least in some cases which preposition to use is both somewhat arbitrary but also governed by conventions, so that it's a thing that one just has to learn, without really asking why.
In such a case on the boot makes more sense as a boot knife typically speaking does not go in the boot where the foot is but on the outside of the boot! I to out of common sense said on the boot as who walks around with a knife inside their boot?
Sorry - nothing to do with the 'in a' 'on a' plate discussion..... Just a note on correct English - it's different FROM not 'to' or worst of all 'than', but, that said, many Brits use 'different to' informally in speech. I wouldn't however.
I guess that does make sense, but sometimes Duolingo wants the literal translation, and sometimes it wants the one that makes more sense. Plus, it seems like a knife could be on a boot just as easily as in it, even if "in" is more likely.
I believe having a knife in one boot actually is part of some traditional swiss/german/italian/something outfit actually
the parts that are peninsulas or islands
edit: mainly the islands, though
im Sicilian and been there , not dangerous at all unless you ❤❤❤❤ w some mafia cats , trappetto, terrisini
Mainly southern Italy like Naples, the further down the more crime. like taffarel said the mostly the islands though like Sicily.
- 1366
I was thinking: "What a sentence!" and then I looked up this page, nearly 2000 people had already discussed it!
- 1837
I haven't seen this one for a long time. This is the most famous sentence in the italian tree.
Actually, they used to be violent; having a bunch of conflict and war but they eventually settled down.
Well, Rosa Klebb did attack James Bond with ( a retractable) one in 'From Russia With Love'. So, yes.
I'm confused. English is not my first language, but I know italian good enough to see that there is no part nello mio stivale, so that answer is in my boot. I hope someone has explaination
I thinks duo's phrases are genious. You easily remember words in such silly sentences and discussions here!!!!!
I am not gonna wear boots in Italy... Because there is either a knife or snake in boots )))) Duolingo rocks LOL
Strange: when it was serpent in boots, then I gad to hse "in my boots" in order to have tge correct answer. Now I used the same approach for the knife and Duolingo said it wrong and "my" shouldn't be used.
Can't see the difference.
That sentence could make sense if you were living in the Wild West the 19th century.
I thought I must have heard it incorrectly, but no, it really said this.
You're partially right... it's "nello" when it's an s+another consonant (st, sb, sg...). It's also "nello" before "z", and a couple other that I can't think of off the top of my head.
Right. I'm sure google would give you all the instances. I know when to use it when I see it, but ask me to list when to use it and my mind goes blank :-/
Is this boot like a car boot ? or trunk as it said in the USA? or does this mean boot as in jack boots ?
"nello" is used for words that begin with z, gl, s+consonant (st, sg, sb, etc.), and I think maybe one or two more that I'm not remembering...
My italian friends told me I should accent the "è" as a separate sylable to prevent confussion with "e"
- 24
In a previous question I saw LE stivale for plural so I assumed singular was LA stivale but it is actually masculine LO stivale? Confused!
If the word begins with 's' and a consonant and is a masculine noun then the article is 'Lo'
Comments under this kind of silly questions are always! Thanks a lot to the kind contributors
This phrase had me convinced there was another meaning to coltello i had missed. Nope, just Duo Lingo's humour again
I'm afraid if you gonna commit crime by hiding a knife on boots scary! But don't you worry lm a lawer here? ?? Hhhhh
Strange sentence! When I see something like this, I think that it can be kinda generator of words, like google translator itself. I hope all is ok with Duolingo...
- 12
Bravo. I always felt like I needed to learn how to say that in Italian. Thank you Duolingo, you changed my life.
what a sentence!!=) hahahah infact i usually store my knifes in my boots yayy=))
Yes, so now, when I go to Italy, I can say, I have a knife in my boot. And they will walk away. And I will laugh like a maniac
- 1192
With duolingo I learned English and Spanish so far. But the strangest sentences are in Italian.
- 2418
Because before s+ consonant (esse impura, "s-t-ivale"!), z, x, bd, gn, ps etc. "il" becomes "lo".
can someone explain the difference between masculine and feminine and the rules surrounding them? why in this case is stivale not feminine? Also when to use il, le, la, I, gli,?
you use the article "il" for singular masculine nouns (those usually end with "-o") yet when the noun is masculine but begins with "s"+ other consonant then you use "lo" (as in lo S+T+ivale). The article "la" is reserved for nouns that are feminine and singular (usually end with "-a" or "-e"). The article " l' " is for both masculine and feminine nouns that being with a vowel (e.g. l'amore). The plural forms of the above mentioned articles are: il --> i // lo --> gli // l' --> gli // la --> le //
That's really dangerous! "Chi ha lasciato il coltello nel stivale? Ho tagliato la mia dannata piedi!"
Is "stivala" a word? I would think the knife was only in one boot, not the boots
In portuguese this mean "faca na bota" that mean someone angry. Sorry for my english, I am brazilian.
When I was a kid, I'd get a new pair of high tops in the fall....one of the boots came with a pocket which held a knife. Somehow, the knife seemed to disappear immediately
Terrible Travel Tip: Strap the knife to the outside of the boot. You won't have to worry about cutting your foot. This really comes in handy in airport security, when you're in a rush to put your shoes back on!
Why the translation has the word "my boot" when it should be just "boot"
Usually when refering to clothing in Italian the possessive is implied and you don't need to use the possessive pronoun
Prugna Professore con un coltello nel stivale nel cucina...woo hoo i can play Clue in Italy now!!
The aim is to give strange examples to make it interesting and easy for the learner to memorize..
So, I read about half of these comments and no one mentioned it, so I'm taking the liberty... a "boot" is also a sheath, i. e. a leather holder for your knife. Many kitchens have them.
This phrase will be useful for when I join the Calabrian mafia. Thanks Duolingo!
WHAT I THOUGHT THE KNIFE WAS IN THE HAT!!! SO MANY THINGS YOU LEARN FROM DUOLINGO.
- 550
I wanted to know if this sentence could mean the boot of a car (U.S. trunk), but the Italian word for that is 'bagagliaio'. If this comment was mentioned already, then I apologise. There were already over 240 comments on this question alone at the time of my post, but from an Android 'fone app', I have no search feature to find a particular post. Unless someone knows of an app or search feature within Duolingo.
Sto morendo dal ridere, ma dai non ditemi che andrete in giro a dire questa frase hahahaha, a meno che non mi incontriate.
Actually my knife is in my bag... i often wear sandals, it is not so confortable...
I love all your comments. I'm from South Africa so my coltello is always in my stivale! Could someone help with this: when is it nel and when is it nello? Thank you!
Thank you so much! Most things I've worked out, but this one had me clueless. Really appreciate it!
Whatever happened to those innocent days when it was just that fly in the sugar :/
Well , between this phrase and " your lion eat my steak" i feel really prepared for the trip !
Well, between this phrase and " yiur lion eat my steak" i feel really prepared for a trip !
Here it says "nello stivale", yet in another exercise it did not accept "nello", but accepted "nel"... I am stuck
Nel = in + il, while nello = in + lo. So it depends on which article should be used with the noun originally. In detail, check this out: http://www.oneworlditaliano.com/english/italian-grammar/italian-definite-articles.htm
