"Fish live in water."
Translation:I pesci vivono nell'acqua.
128 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
Why cannot it be one single fish? In other questions or sentences fish is also traduced as "fishes".
Ok, i also made the same mistake... In case of one fish it would be : fish lives in water ( "it lives"))... So this is singular. In case of plural, which here is a case: fish live in water ("they live") A little bit tricky it was :)
But we don't say fishes in this content, it would be poor grammar. We say the fish lives in the water. Or the fish in the sea.
We say, "Fish live in the water" as a general state of being.
If we say, "The fish live in the water" it sounds to my native American English ear that we're going to find out "but they die out of water."
I feel Duolingo is being inconsistent in this - fish v the fish, pesci v i pesci
It's not that Duo is inconsistent here, it's that Italian is inconsistent with English. Both Italian and English use the definite article to refer to a specific one, portion or set of something. That's your example with The fish. But Italian also uses the definite article when making a generalizing statement like this. This is talking about the "all". There are greater consequences than just this, but this does mean that any object or "thing" that is the subject of the sentence will have a definite article. I pesci vivono nell'acqua is the translation for both Fish live in water and The fish live in water. Obviously the first option is by far the more likely in this case, but in many cases only the context with show the difference.
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But Duo is being inconsistent, as I just posted about a prior example in this same lesson - i.e. "the chicken'. There have been numerous examples where the article was omitted when referring to items in a general sense, rather than a particular one. The sentence was "Fish live in water", not "The fish".
You cannot say fish lives in water. It's not correct English. Either you are talking about a specific fish which requires the definite article or you are using an abstract example of "a fish". But some article or demonstrative adjective is required for any singular form, whether or not the noun changes in the plural.
According to WordWeb:
- Traduce: Speak unfavourably about ("She traduces her husband everywhere")
Even worse than that from the website I consulted: to speak maliciously about, libel, defame or slander.
I think they just made a bad combination of translated and traducido.
Because saying "Fish live in water" when referring to a single fish is grammatically incorrect in English. If you were referring to one fish it would be "A/the fish lives in water"
She means translate. I'm guessing she's French so she took the easy way out by extracting "Traduce" from the french word "Traduction" which means Translation...that could happen.
I used abitano "they dwell" also. Counted incorrect. 20 Settembre 2018
Bill, take a look below at the comment by LanfrancoM2. Apparently "'abitare' is specific and usually used for people". Whereas 'vivere' is more general.
'Abitare' and 'vivere' probably converge for fish as they both 'dwell' and pass their existence in the water.
That's not true. Abitare can mean to live, dwell, reside, inhabit or occupy but says nothing about what type of structure or environment in which that living, dwelling, residing, inhabiting or occupying takes place.
https://www.wordreference.com/iten/Abitare
I pesci vivono nell'acqua And I pesci abitano l'acqua are different sentences, but both are valid. You are probably more likely to see I pesci abitano il mare, or a more specific "body" of water that they live in. The first essentially mean that fish survive in water. If you take a fish out of water, it dies. Fish live in water. But the second is simply talking about where the fish dwell. Fish dwell in water. They inhabit the sea.
I'm an Italian native speaker. "abitare" is typically used for humans although you can use it for animals in certain cases. You can sound childish or funny or snob, depending on the case. Better if you stick to "vivere" for animals until you're not a pro.
My problem is that sometimes they throw pesci alone and if you add i pesci they mark it as wrong And sometimes the opposite It is tilting
It's not quite as clear cut in Italian as in Spanish. But any time you have anything but a proper name as the subject of a sentence, it will have an article. When dealing with "some" Italian does use a partitive article and sometimes the definite article, which makes it less clear. But Italian always uses the definite article when generalizing or talking about the "all" in any way, which by definition would include any case where an object is the subject of a sentence (unless you use the indefinite article). This is the biggest difference since English never uses an article in these cases.
why not "I pesci vivono in acqua" because it is not specified for which water? It is a general sentence
Because the water still requires an article, which would be "la" as it's a feminine word. However, because "acqua" starts with a vowel, la becomes l'. In Italian "in" + "l'" = "nell' ". So it is "vivono nell'acqua"
If it is "I pesci" in italian shouldn't the English meaning be "the fishes"?
For common usage, the plural of fish is fish. It functions like an uncountable noun in English, so you may see fishes in discussion of different species of fish, just as you might see a discussion of the coffees of the world. Of course The Godfather popularized the expression "sleep with the fishes". That actually came from the movie, not the book, and was supposed to represent an Italian expression - where you would see I pesci.
Abitare is specific and usually used for people
Io vivo a Roma e abito in via appia 10
I pesci vivono nell'acqua e gli uomini vivono sulla terra
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The Italian translation without the article "i" should have been considered correct. The English sentence is "Fish..." and not "The fish...". Sorry duolingo you have to get this right as every live matters.
The rules in Italian concerning the use of the definite article are not the same as the English rules. This sentence is an example of the most difficult difference for English speakers to learn. In English we don't use the definite article when we generalize about something as a whole. These generalizing statements use the singular for uncountable nouns and the plural for countable nouns. This is where Italian always does require an article. Since a sentence is either about a specific one, portion or set of something, which would use the definite article in both languages, or a general statement about an assumed "all", which requires the article in Italian but shuns it in English, the subject of any Italian sentence will always have the article. But there are also other sentences where we generalize about something that isn't the subject, so that's not the full extent of the problem for English speakers. If you assume the same rules in Italian that exist in English, you will get into trouble a good percentage of the time.
I hate this article issues ... pesci or i pesci, is that article so important?
In this case the article is absolutely important. Italian uses the article when generalizing about something. It's one of the times we never use the definite article in English. It can take a little practice to tell when a use is a generalizing one. But one tip should make it easier. You will never see a noun as the subject of an Italian sentence without the definite article. So both the English sentence Fish live in water and The fish live in water will be I pesci vivono nell'acqua. That part makes it easy at least.
Acqua is feminine, so its article is "la"; in+la becomes "nella", and nella before a vowel such as "a" is truncated, so "nell'acqua". Nel is the compound of in+il, so it's used with masculine names where you'd use the article "il".
Cool, thx a lot! :) And are there situations where you only use "in" or is it just in for masculin => nel in for feminine => nella
Yes, there are situations where the article isn't necessary; for instance "sono in macchina" (I'm/they're generically inside a car) vs "sono nella macchina" (I'm/they're inside the car - what car your interlocutor knows) vs "sono in una macchina" (I'm/they're inside a car - but one your interlocutor doesn't know). When to use the article isn't always obvious though :)
Btw note that just like there are both il and lo for masculine nouns, so there are their respective compounds nel and nello; you decide which to use based on the same rules.
Ok, so if I get your right, it's similar to german: You use "in" for "They are in a car" (some random car) and "nella" for "They are in this car" (particular one). And then you need to adapt for masculin, feminin or these special cases, right? :)
Yes, the logic is very similar :) But it's not always that obvious: for instance in "i documenti sono in ufficio" (the documents are in the office) leaving out the article is the same as saying "nel mio ufficio".
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In modern English the plural of "fish" is usually just "fish", except when talking about different kinds of fish, in which case "fishes" is used.
On the other hand, in English generalizations use plurals without article ("fish", "fishes"). As I understand, in Italian only plurals with definite article could be used ("i pesci").
- fish = pesce (singular)
- fish/fishes = pesci (plural)
- fish/fishes = i pesci (generalization)
Italian requires the definite article whenever you are making a generalizing statement about something. This is one place where we never use the article in English. This means that an Italian subject must have the article. Either you are talking about a specific one or set, as in English, or you are generalizing about something like here. But it is not only subjects that are generalizing. It is one of the major differences in the use of the definite article between Italian and English.
Why not just "pesci vivono...", why the i? The English sentence is "fish live..." not "The fish live...". Italian is quite close to Portuguese and in that case both could be used.
Well you may have identified yet another reason why I struggle with Portuguese so much, but this is like Spanish at least. This is the case where Italian requires the definite article and English cannot use one - when generalizing or talking about the "all". From the fact that there is no article in the English, we know that we are making a generalization about what fish do, what all fish do. In Italian that requires the article. If we were to add the article to the English, we would know we were talking about either an individual fish (The fish lives) or about a specific set of fish that is the topic (The fish live). Of course this is one of those oddball English words where the singular form and the plural form is the same, you just change to a plural verb. Sheep is another. The only reason I mentioned this is because this obscures the normal rule for understanding a generalization. When you generalize about an uncountable noun, you use the singular (Coffee is bitter), but when you generalize about a countable noun, it has to be plural (Flowers are pretty). Therefore, the sentence Flower is (whatever) is necessarily wrong in English. Since we are talking about a specific flower, the article is required. Once you understand that, it becomes clear that a noun subject of an Italian sentence will always have an article unless it uses a different determiner. There are some sentences where you are essentially are generalizing about something in the preterite. In English, sentences about liking something are like that, but Italian makes that one easy, at least, by making the object of the English sentence the subject of the Italian one. But there are other cases in Italian. But it's easy to remember that the subject of the sentence always has a determiner in Italian. But you will have to rely on the context in a real life situation to understand whether Il caffè è armaro means Coffee is bitter or The coffee is bitter.
is pesce both singular and plural in Italian as it is English, or are we talking about all sorts of species of fish here?
Pesce can be used as a 'mass noun' to say things like We're having fish tonight/Stasera mangiamo del pesce... but when you can count more than one, then it isn't the same as in English: I have three fish/ho tre pesci
For the multiple choice question, it's got two identical (correct) choices, but it accepts only one of them.
I had the same question. See LanfrancoM2 above. He/she states "Abitare is specific and usually used for people
Io vivo a Roma e abito in via appia 10
I pesci vivono nell'acqua e gli uomini vivono sulla terra"
The article to be used is I? For plural forms of subjects?? If singular, Il?
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If it was one fish then the original sentence would have included an article (a fish/the fish) and the following verb would have catered to a single object rather than multiple (i.e. "a fish liveS" rather than "fish live").
There was a question earlier in the course where, because they were asking "live" in the geographical sense, "vivono" was wrong and "abitono" was right. This is also in the geographical sense, but here "abitono" is wrong and "vivono" is right. It's inconsistencies like this that make me want to stop using this website
It's not an inconsistency, it's just two different but similar meanings of two different words. Abitano is more like "have their habitat in", whereas vivono is more general, like you live in X country.
LanfrancoM2 explained it really well: Abitare is specific and usually used for people
Io vivo a Roma e abito in via appia 10
I pesci vivono nell'acqua e gli uomini vivono sulla terra
Duo can't win for losing. Simple sentences annoy people as too obvious, and more imaginative sentences which have horses in boots or elephants riding bikes seem to annoy people because they aren't real. Writing sentences about animals isn't easy.
In is the base form. It is used when no form of the is combined with in, although that is not very common. But once you add the article ending, the i disappears.
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Help! Why isn't it 'i pesci vivono in acgua' for 'fish live in water'?? It doesn't say ''in the water". In previous questions, when there was no 'the', the answer used Italian 'in' for English 'in' as in 'vive in Messico' or 'credo in lui'. Why the change now?
Because the water is l'acqua, not just acqua (I've learned to always assume the article must be used, cause it seems to be correct more often than incorrect).
In+l' becomes nell'.
I got correct but i think this is confusing. Should it be "Fishes live in water" or "The fish lives in water?"
Fishes just isn't correct English. Fish is both singular and plural in English. As for whether to include the word "the" in English, both would be correct. English doesn't include the definite article when generalizing about ALL fish. But that's exactly the case where Spanish does that tends to confuse English speakers.
Fish and fishes are both listed as correct plurals in both the Oxford English dictionary and Merriam Webster. In the United States you almost never hear fishes except for Biblical references to the loaves and fishes. Despite being officially correct, I think almost every American child is taught that fish is the plural of fish without learning fishes, although most words can have a plural even if it isn't used for the plural most of the time. Essentially we treat the word as if it were uncountable.
Italian prepositions have a base form and then combine with the various articles to form a compound preposition. In is the base form. In all the compound forms, in loses the i. Nell is in + il, but there is also nella, nello, nei, etc.
https://www.rocketlanguages.com/italian/grammar/italian-prepositions
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quando si usa nel solo davanti a sostantivi maschili al posto di IN+IL. in questo caso acqua è femminile e IN+LA diventa NELLA e si apostrofa= NELL'acqua
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in this english forum, the answer is that the combined preposition article for single nouns (m or f) beginning with a vowel it is 'preposition + 'll'.
'all', 'nell', dell', sull' and 'dall'. http://www.uvm.edu/~cmazzoni/3grammatica/grammatica/prepositions.html
Fish in this sentence has to be plural for two reasons.
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If we were talking about a single fish, an article or determiner would be required in English. We would have to say a fish or the fish or any fish or that fish, etc.
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If fish were singular, the verb would be third person singular lives, not live.
The most similar singular sentence would be A fish lives in water.
Remember hints just list possible meanings of the word in some contexts. Nel is the Italian preposition in combined with the definite article il. If it is combined with la, it would be nella. It is often not clear from the English whether the Italian will require the article. I haven't yet figured out any rule, but I am developing an instinct for it.
The picture isn't as clear with definite articles in Italian as with Spanish, but this part is easy. When you have a generalizing statement like here, essentially talking about all fish, you always use definite article in Italian. This is one of the times you never do in English. One of the consequences of this is that you will never have the subject of the sentence without an article in Italian. Either you are talking about a specific one, portion or set or you are generalizing about the all. Both require the article in Italian.
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??? "of the plural form"??? comunque fish traduce sia il singolare che il plurale come sheep
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sometimes. if you are interested in the multiplicity of species of fish, that is fishes. generally, you would encounter this in journals. (the reef is inhabited by many species of fishes.) but if you are talking about either salmon or perch it is fish , or if you are just talking about fish in the lake/sea it is just fish. (the improvements in the quality of the lake water has lead to a spike in the population of fish)
Yes. Most uncountable nouns do have plurals that can be used in situations where there are different types or sources. So you will see unusual plural forms like waters, cheeses, peoples and fishes. It's an inherent property of uncountable nouns, although some examples seem stranger than others.
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Ciao mirzazi! Osservando il verbo noterai che manca la "s" finale. Se fosse singolare sarebbe "lives". Invece "live" è per forza plurale
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Ciao Leonardo! Cosa intendi? nella frase inglese l'articolo non ci va, mentre in quella italiana ovviamente sì. I pesci vivono nell'acqua. La forma i pesci vivono in acqua non sono certo che l'accetti ma suona un pochino strana in italiana, anche se tecnicamente corretta.
I think you would be understood. But if I were to talk about where a fish resides, I would be more specific than water, although that would require that you specify a fish. Fish live in rivers lakes and oceans, and each type of fish interacts with his environment differently. I think if you are talking about a home, it can't be that general. But, as I say, I think everyone would understand you and wouldn't even have to wonder about it.
Why are these ones so hard??? Is anyone else just wastinf their time getting these wrong over and over and not worrying about actually learning them
I think you just need to identify what you find so difficult about this simple sentence. I am assuming that it probably has to due with the use of the definite article or the fact that you failed to recognize that the English sentence was a generalization about fish in general, and therefore would use the plural, i pesci, in Italian. Subjects of Italian sentences will have an article if they don't use a demonstrative adjective or some other form instead. That's because you are either using a particular one, portion or set as your subject to talk about that, or you are making a generalization about the thing(s) as a whole. The latter case doesn't use the definite article in English, but does in Italian. The second issue is actually obvious from both the lack of an indefinite article and the form of the verb, which would be lives for a single fish.
Why is "pesci vivono nell'acqua" wrong? When do i need to put the article and when not??
In addition to using the definite article like English does, to talk about a specific one, portion or set, Italian uses the definite article to define or to generalize about the thing as a whole. That's like here, a place where English never uses the article. As a practical matter, that means that the subject of an Italian sentence is always going to have the article, because you are either talking about a particular one, portion or set; or to define or generalize about the whole. Thus il caffè è nero can be talking about a particular portion of coffee (The coffee is black), or be talking about coffee in general (Coffee is black).
Because if this were singular you would have to have both an article (a or the) and the singular conjugation would be swims. A fish swims in water.
"Fish live in water" is unambiguously plural in English. There is no way it could be singular. If fish were singular there would need to be an article (a fish or the fish). If the verb were singular it would be lives.
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in italian you cannot sei "pesci vivono nell'acqua" like you have to do in english. Italian need articles
Italian always uses the article when you are generalizing about something as a whole - the "all". That's one of the times we don't use one. This means that Italian subjects that aren't names will always use the article if there isn't another determining adjective. This is because you are either talking about a particular one, portion or set, or you are making a generalization about the all. But understanding the issue about generalizations will help you understand some of the other uses of the article since it can be a generalization without being the subject.
Yes. This is a consistent difference between English and Italian. In English when you are generalizing about the thing as a whole, like here, you never use the definite article. That's true of both singular, uncountable nouns like coffee or plural, countable nouns. The word fish in English is sort of half and half, but you get the picture. But in Italian they always use the article when they are generalizing.
This actually may cause you more problems in the long run in some other syntaxes, but this actually makes things almost easier in Italian. Any non proper noun that's a subject of a sentence will always have the article in Italian, unless it has a different modifier. This is because a sentence will either be talking about a specific one, portion or set, which will use the article in both languages, or a generalization about the all, which needs it only in Italian.
You don't need to be a mind reader, you just have to know more Italian than you've picked up yet. As the subject of a sentence, it will always be I pesci, whether the translation is the fish or just fish. In Italian you use the definite article not only to specify a particular one, portion or set, but also to make generalizations about the "all". So non proper nouns will always have the article as the subject of a sentence, unless they use something like a demonstrative adjective.