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- Topic: Italian >
- "I gatti bevono acqua."
42 Comments
"Gatte" is a number of female cats; "gatti" is a number of male cats, or of cats of unknown gender, or of cats of mixed gender.
How many Lingots do you have, f.formica?
(Yes, I know this is off topic, but look at his streak!)
So if he ask for cats i should write gatte and not gatti? I mean... in english cats is for both
Write "gatti" because when it is male it can usually mean both genders or unidentified gender, as well as the masculine gender. When you use cats it uses that same rule.
It is similar to french and spanish as they are latin where gatte is female gatti is male or unknown/mixed.
In the lesson that introduces gatte, there is no mention that such means female cats. In the lesson for gatti, there is no mention that it could be all males, unknown genders, or cats of mixed gender. That makes the lesson confusing. Plus they define it in gutti as cats or cat but count you wrong if one uses cat. This info should be added to the site.
Good thing one can check out comments, or one would be clueless.
This kind of information is always present in the comments section. So, it's important to read all the comments if you're really interested in a specific language.
Doulingo for the love of god, can you post the rules you are wanting us to learn with the lesson!!!!! So we can actually have a better understanding of what we are doing. This isn't rocket science.
22
Well, one, the article is omitted for reasons I'm not sure of. Two, you forgot the 'c' in acqua.
Gli is for words in plural that begin with vowels, i is for the rest. Therefore 'gli uomini' and 'i gatti'! I hope i helped!
gli is also for words starting with z, s + consonant, gn, ps, x (i gatti; gli gnocchi)
Why isn't "The male cats drink water" a correct answer? I realize the gatti could refer to cats of mixed gender, but still, this seems like a valid answer to me.
You don't have to specify if it's a male or female cat, we don't take it so seriously. Just translate to plain English "cat". Duolingo isn't asking you for "male" or "female", that's why you get it wrong.
- 22
I'm not certain on this, but l'acqua sounds more like a bit of water the listener acknowledges, while acqua is the idea of water. In this case, it would mean the cats do drink water, but aren't neccessarily in the proccess of drinking at the concern of listener. This is merely how I understand it, correct me if I'm wrong.
"Acqua" is just water "l'Acqua" is "the water
you use "acqua" when you use sentences like" i need to drink water" and you use "l'acqua" when you would say "have you heard about the water spilling out of the dam yesterday?
Why do you sometimes use the article, like in the sentence before this one to describe a general habit, and sometimes not, like here?
can i ask something ? le and i is the same thing and gli and i is also the same??
"Le" is feminine plural, "I" is masculine plural, and "Gli" is plural for words that start with a vowel.
My understanding is that "gli" is only for masculine plural nouns beginning with a vowel.
why does it seem from this that the word for cat depends on gender? I have not seen this with the other animals.
I might be wrong here but why isn't the proper translation for il gatto "tomcat"? In German it would be Kater (male) as opposed to Katze (female). Most (if not all) animals actually have a different word for male and female. Just mentioning stallion and mare (horse), dog and bitch... So it would be nice if duolingo accepted the word tomcat.
Both are for the masculine plural; gli has some specific rules like if the following noun starts with a vowel (gli uomini). I is used for the rest.
I'm still learning so I don't recall the other rules, sorry!
They drill "le gatte" into your head over and over as vocab for "the cats", and then they throw in a random "i gatti" every once in awhile. It's frustrating.
"I gatti" and "Le gatte" both came up in same level lesson on plurals - what's the difference please?!?
