"I eat your cakes."
Translation:Io mangio le tue torte.
77 Comments
i wrote "le tue torte" instead of "le vostre torte". It was accounted as right, but what is the difference then? is it your cakes in the sense of a group of people?
Unless you count "you all", English doesn't really have a way of specifying if the second person is singular or plural. "You" works for both. However in Italian, there are three ways you can translate "you" and only two that you need to worry about until you get further down the skill tree:
- 2nd person singular : tu (le tue torte)
- 2nd person plural : voi (le vostre torte)
- formal you, 3rd pers. sing. conjugation : Lei (le Sue torte)
So you're right! One of the translations here indicates that you are eating the cakes owned by many people.
Where I come from, people sometimes say "You guys' cakes" or even "y'all's cakes", but of course that's very informal.
I'm confused. It seems to me that "le sue torte" would be her cakes, rather than your cakes. What am I missing?
1952
In Italian, the formal "you" is Lei (written with a capital letter) and the formal "you all" is Loro (written with a capital letter). So the possessives likewise get capitalized.
So "le sue torte" would indeed be "his/her cakes" but "le Sue torte" would be "your cakes".
- 1952
Yes, "lei" is "she" most of the time. It is also used as the formal/polite "you".
- 1952
There are two different "you"s in Italian: the singular and the plural. For both of these (indeed, for all of the pronouns), there are four different possessives, because possessives (like articles and adjectives) must agree with the noun they go with, not "whose" they are.
TU
il tuo = your singular masculine thing
la tua = your singular feminine thing
i tuoi = your plural masculine/mixed/unknown things
le tue = your plural feminine things
VOI
il vostro = your singular masculine thing
la vostra = your singular feminine thing
i vostri = your plural masculine/mixed/unknown things
le vostre = your plural feminine things
- 459
I got this too when I wrote i tuoi torte. I think it is duolingo trying to find the most correct response. If you had meant to write dolci instead of torte (both plural of cakes though dolci can mean sweets generally) then at least 2 of the words (article and possessive) are correct. On the other hand if you did mean to use torte than the article and the possessive are incorrect because they are not appropriate to the gender of the word.
Is necessary to have "le" on "tue torte"? I wrote "Io mangio tue torte". Is that informal only or plain wrong?
It's wrong. You may only (and have to) omit the article when referring to a single family member.
I wrote: Io mangio i vostri torte and it came out wrong for the word cakes it gave me dolci???? Why?
- 133
It was expecting a plural masculine object when you wrote 'i vostri', so it felt the masculine word for 'sweets' (which include 'cakes') was 'dolci'. As 'torte' is feminine plural, the possessive that goes with it is 'le vostre' when you are talking to multiple people.
- 1952
It was expecting a plural masculine noun. It doesn't matter if this is the subject or the object.
- 1952
With the exception of family members, the possessive in Italian needs the definite article. In English we say "your cake", in Italian they say "la tua torta".
It's telling me I should've used 'dolci' instead of 'torte'... Can anyone explain that?
Mangio is first person, mangia is third person. If you hover over the verbs, you'll find a blue button that leads to a conjugation table.
How do you know when to use "le tue" instead of "le vostre" duo lingo says both are correct translations, is one formal and the other informal ?
when it's the plural of a masculine word il ragazzo -> i ragazzi la ragazza -> le ragazze
- 1952
Because i is masculine plural, and torte is feminine plural. They have to agree.
- 1952
It's wrong because the possessive has to agree with "torte" and never whose it is. "Torte" is feminine and "i tuoi" is masculine.
I put "le sue torte" I didn't even think to put tue and now I'm confused as to which is more accurate to say. (I got it right by the way)
- 1952
The informal/casual way to address someone is tu and so when talking to that person it would be "le tue torte". The formal/polite way to address someone is Lei and so when talking to that person it would be "le sue torte".
For multiple people, informally, it would be voi and "le vostre torte". Polite register would be Loro and "le loro torte".
http://italian.about.com/cs/grammar/ht/formalinformal.htm
https://www.pimsleurapproach.com/resources/italian/grammar-guides/formal-informal/
i chose io mangio le tue torte for the answer. but it says wrong. afterwards i chose io mangio le vostre torte for the answer. but it says wrong either. the third one is def. a wrong answer. is there something wrong with the answers?
- 1952
You ought to have chosen both "Io mangio le tue torte" and "Io mangio le vostre torte". The instructions say to select all correct answers. You got marked wrong for missing a correct option.
I put "io mangio i tuoi torte" instead of "io mangio i tuoi dolci". What's the difference between "torte" and "dolci"? They both mean cakes.
- 1952
It's just how Italian grammar works, that they use the definite article ("the") in possessives. English does not.
- 1952
dolci is literally sweets but is also used to refer to confectionery.
La Dolce Vita = The Sweet Life
how do you understand when the sentence is saying "all your" rather than "your" like in this sentence?
- 1952
The singular "you" is "tu" and the possessives are "tuo/tua/tuoi/tue".
The plural "you" is "voi" and the possessives are "vostro/vostra/vostri/vostre".
there are so many variations of saying 'your', im not sure which context to use them???
- 1952
If you address a single person as TU:
il tuo = your singular masculine thing
i tuoi = your plural masculine/mixed/unknown things
la tua = your singular feminine thing
le tue = your plural feminine things
If you address multiple people as VOI:
il vostro = your singular masculine thing
i vostri = your plural masculine/mixed/unknown things
la vostra = your singular feminine thing
le vostre = your plural feminine things
If you address a single person as LEI (formal/polite):
il Suo = your singular masculine thing
i Suoi = your plural masculine/mixed/unknown things
la Sua = your singular feminine thing
le Sue = your plural feminine things
If you address multiple people as LORO (formal/polite):
il Loro = your singular masculine thing
i Loro = your plural masculine/mixed/unknown things
la Loro = your singular feminine thing
le Loro = your plural feminine things
- The gender and number agree with the thing(s) possessed, not with who possesses it/them.
- For now, don't worry too much about the formal/polite forms, but just keep them in the back of your mind.
- 1952
Verbs in Italian conjugate more thoroughly than they do in English.
https://www.italian-verbs.com/italian-verbs/conjugation.php?parola=mangiare
io mangio
tu mangi
lui/lei mangia
noi mangiamo
voi mangiate
loro mangiano
- 1952
There's a subtle difference.
One suggests it's YOUR cakes, as opposed to someone else's cakes.
One suggests it's your CAKES, as opposed to something else of yours.
I'm confused here. The response in the lesson was, "Io mangio i tuoi dolce." Perque?
If I do not crack this soon, I shall give up, as it is melting my brain.
- 542
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