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- "The boy eats the apple."
"The boy eats the apple."
Translation:Il ragazzo mangia la mela.
57 Comments
It's a capital 'i' it looks like it's a capital 'L', but it's not. so if you write in lower case it should be il. Perhaps they should write these answers in lower case letters..or use a font serif font which would be more clear ans to which letter is being used. this is the capital i "I" and this is the lower case L "l' they look the same. it's confusing...I've noticed similar replies on many discussion questions and answers.
Thanks for your answer, but I'm still confused about the question "the boy eats the apple"
If "la" is feminine and "Il" is masculine...
Il ragazzo = the boy mangia = eats (or eat, it depends on the sentence) La mela = the apple
And the CORRECT ANSWER in this question is "Il ragazzo mangia la mela"
If "La" = feminine It means, "La mela" = the apple (feminine object)
Then,
If "Il" = masculine It means, "Il ragazzo" = the boy (masculine subject)
And, in this question is "THE BOY eats the apple" not "THE GIRL eats the apple"
Masculine subject + masculine object = RELEVANT.
BUT masculine subject + feminine object = IRRELEVANT. (and it makes me kinda CONFUSED)
If "Il ragazzo mangia un mela" and "Il ragazzo mangia una mela"
Un = a, an, someone (masculine)
Una = a, an, someone (feminine)
I understand that "un" is "a / an" not "the" but "un" is masculine.
Why don't "Il ragazzo mangia un mela" ???
569
"Il ragazzo" is masculine because "ragazzo ends in an "o" (and he is a boy). It has nothing to do with the grammatical sex of the apple. "La mela" is feminine because "mela" ends in an "a". All nouns are either masculine or feminine in Italian. The grammatical sex of the boy has nothing to do with the grammatical sex of the apple, and vice versa. They are two different nouns. In other words, the grammatical sex of the subject has nothing to do with the grammatical sex of the object, ever.
It is always una mela because "mela" is feminine. It is always un ragazzo because "ragazzo" is masculine. "Un ragazzo mangia una mela." If a girl ate an apple, it would be "Una ragazza mangia una mela. The grammatical sex of the subject is ALWAYS IRRELEVANT to the grammatical sex of the object.
I hope my explanation is clear and I was able to help you. If not, please let me know.
375
https://www.cyberitalian.com/en/html/gra_na.html
• Most(1) nouns ending in -o are singular masculine
• Most(2) nouns ending in -a are singular feminine
.........(1/2) There are some exceptions
(1) ) la radio (sing. fem.), la mano (sing. fem.),...
(2) ) il problema (sing. masc.), le dita (pl. fem.),...
• Nouns ending in -i can be:
1) plural masculine (i cani)
2) plural feminine (le navi)
• Nouns ending in -e can be:
1) singular masculine (il cane)
2) singular feminine (la nave)
3) plural feminine (le case)
• There are very few nouns ending in -u or -consonant and they can be anything
This is called conjugation. In English we hardly notice it because we say I eat, we eat, etc. but we do say he/she eats. In Italian the present tense of mangiare (to eat) conjugates as follows: Mangio, I eat Mangi, you eat Mangia, he/she/it eats Mangiamo, we eat Mangiate, you (plural) eat Mangiano, they eat Verbs just have to be learnt, either by repetition as here or off by heart.
375
conjugation of the verb "mangiare"
. . . . indicativo presente
io mangio . . . . . . . . I eat
tu mangi . . . . . . . . .you eat
Lui/Lei mangia . . . he/she eats
noi mangiamo . . . . we eat
voi mangiate . . . . . .you eat (you all eat)
Loro mangiano . . . .they eat
first and foremost, we're talking about singular here so that means we should have il.
Second, even fi this was plural we should use I insteand of gli, because gli is the plural for lo (we use lo when we have z+vowel or s+consonant i.e. lo zucchero, lo squalo) and for l', which is something we use before smthing that starts with a vowel i.e. l'ape l'animale
"il" for most masculine nouns;
"lo" for masculine nouns starting with: s + a consonant, ps or z;
"la" for feminine nouns ;
"l' " for any nouns starting with a vowel.
Which nouns are masculine and which are féminine? You just have to learn them as you go along although there are ways of giving an informed guess. For instance "ragazzo" ends with an "o" and it means boy so quite logically it is masculine. "ragazza" ends with an "a" and means girl so again logically it is a feminine noun.
569
"Why are there two words for the?" Because many languages have nouns that are considered grammatically male or female. "Il" is "the" for grammatically male nouns and "la" is "the" for grammatically female nouns. Ragazzo is masculine, mela is feminine.
111
I know that 3rd person singular is "mangia", but Duo gives options (lui/lei) mangi - what am I missing here?!
They don't have stories in Italian to earn more xp so that's not why those people got more XP in too short of a time. Ok whatever. I'm not going to try to be in the top spot anymore. I have too many other things to do in quarantine it's supposed to be on stressful, I don't cheat and don't like cheaters . Like a lady here said, play the app don't let the app play you . I have enough to stress about. Grazie!