"Gli uomini bevono l'acqua."
Translation:The men drink the water.
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Singular articles: la, il, lo, contracted form l' (only for singular) / plural articles: le (plural for la), i (plural for il), gli (plural for lo)
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But sometimes even words that start with a consonant take "gli"... gli stupidi (the stupids), gli scimpanzè (the chimpanzees), gli zii (the uncles).
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Masculine articles: singular il, plural i. Exceptions: when a masculine noun starts with s+consonant, z, w, x, gn, pn, ps, singular form is lo and its plural gli
How would Italians distinguish between water in general and in particular? (i.e. here "The men drink water" is marked as correct also, and I've noticed that sometimes it's okay to leave the article off, but most of the time it is necessary.)
Should I say (as I would in English) something like "Non mangio la verdura" if I mean "I do not eat the vegetable (a particular vegetable, most likely)", and "Non mangio verdura" if I mean "I do not eat vegetables (in general)"? Or are they interchangeable?
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In a different exercise I translated "the men drink water" as "gli uomini bevono l' acqua" but it was still marked as wrong because of the use of l'. Apparently the use of l there was correct though. I believe both are correct: "Gli uomini bevono l' acqua" and "Gli uomini bevono acqua" and this was just a glitch of the system. Can anyone confirm if I'm wright please?
No, even though they have the same meaning, one has the definite article and one hasn't. You have to spot the difference because it's not every case that the article doesn't interfere on the meaning. It's rather different to say, e.g. "The men drink water" and "Men drink water". In the first case, you are specifying a group of men with "the" (Gli uomini, definite article), in the second case you are generalizing that all men drink water (Uomini, without article). Hope it helps!
I read a post in another discussion where it was said that we don't have this actually sound in the english language and that to say it properly you needed to mimic the action we make for a t - lifting our tongue to touch the gums/roof of our mouth. How right they were.....made all the difference for me in pronouncing the word gli.
Well technically the sound is made a little differently. It's like the Spanish "ll" in "pollo" as it is said in Spain. Rather than rest your tongue on the ridge behind your front teeth, as you do when you say a normal "L," the middle of your tongue bunches up on the roof of your mouth.
Probably too much info but here you go: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palatal_lateral_approximant
My native language is Spanish, and I'm use to pronounce the "Gl"phonetically speaking, buy in this exercise if I pronounced, will not let be finish the sentence and will tell me I'm wrong, however if i don't pronounce the " G " the app say i got it correct.... Can a native Italian help? Do we pronounce the "G"?
Yes, because the article must agree in number with the noun. L' is a contraction for the singular masculine "Il", and "uomini" is a masculine plural. So you must use "Gli" that's the masculine plural for words that start with a vowel. In english "the" isn't flexible in number, that's why translating directly doesn't always work. :D