"Gli uccelli mangiano frutta."
Translation:The birds eat fruit.
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846
if they eat fruit, that's singular, but it means more than one fruit. shouldn't 'frutti' be used then instead of 'frutta'?
1052
I had put la frutta not just frutta and marked wrong. Says it should just have been frutta. Is the error because it was a listening exercise (so mishearing against the washing machine and not word for word, so ???normally ok to say), or does it mean if fruit is uncountable as noted above rather than singular that you should drop the la, or is there a rule when you must or can use la (or il etc) v's when this is not meant to be used?
It is write that "gli" only comes before plural masculine nouns, but that noum doesn't necessarily start with a vowel. "Gli" is the plural form of "l'" and of "lo", so it also comes before plural forms of nouns that would take the "lo" in the singular, like "gli squali", "gli zuccheri", "gli gnomi".
846
yes, all the above + Keep in mind "gli" is only for masculine!! The vowel-starting feminine word will be pluralized with "le", such as "le ore" but I haven't see many examples of this!
I put "birds eat fruit" because as it's not "la frutta", it's fruit in general and the "gli" would be unnecessary in English. Though in English, "the birds eat fruit" would refer to an identifiable group of birds (the birds in my garden for example.). Whereas "birds eat fruit" would be birds in general, or all birds, or some birds always, so I should have been wrong. (That was a confusing sentence.). Italian is an old and evolving language so everything will have a purpose. So, my question is simple. If my answer actually was correct, what does the gli do?