"Your insects are on my plate."
Translation:I tuoi insetti sono nel mio piatto.
71 Comments
Is anyone able to explain why these insects are "i tuoi insetti" and not "gli tuoi insetti" as with the singular form?
Thanks for clearing that up... that is weird, I thought it would go with insetti not with tuoi... oh well...
It's a pronunciation thing. *"i insetti" is hard to say/hear properly. "i tuoi insetti" is easier to say. It's the same with "an orange" and "a big orange" in English.
Is anyone able to explain why it's "nel mio piatto" and not "nel il mio piatto"??
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ahhhh of course - nel = ne + il. "nel il mio piatto" is repeating the article twice
I'd like someone to explain to me why it's nel, because nel means in the, and not on the.
I think it's just convention that Italians say in the plate not on the plate.
Why is 'I suoi' an accepted answer? I thought this would mean his/her insects?
"Your insects" can be translated as
"I tuoi insetti" (singular yours)
"I vostri insetti" (plural yours)
"I suoi insetti" (courtesy form)
Please report it if something is not accepted.
I'm confused. Why 'nel' and not 'sul'? I would translate 'nel mio piatto' as 'in my plate', and 'sul mio piatto' as 'on my plate'. As an American English speaker, I say things are in dishes (concave containers), but on plates (flat surfaces). On the other hand[*], my Italian dictionary says 'piatto' means 'dish', in which case 'nel mio piatto' would be 'in my dish', which makes more sense to me. Are plates and dishes synonymous in Italian?
[* To be fair, English learners might reasonably ask why we sometimes use 'on' and other times 'in' with respect to hands.]
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In Italian a plate is considered a container, so the food goes inside, therefor "nel"
In English a plate is considered a surface, not a container, so "in the plate" is wrong in English. Plate and dish seem to be references to the same piece of tableware in Italian (certainly my Italian wife and her family all use 'piatto' both for a plate and a dish. And if you think about it in English dish can mean either a slightly concave plate or it can refer to the food itself (as in "dish of the day").
I had a vision of 2 people with their pet insects (maybe crickets?), on tiny leashes, eating side by side & being rather territorial. After all, some people bring their dogs to restaurants...
I think if someone's insects were on my plate, I would end the sentence with exclamation points!!!
What's with the creepy sentences, DL? Of the endless possibilities, it seems you could think of something more normal.
As English 'your' can be singular or plural why isn't either 'tuoi' or 'vostri' accepted?
I wrote "I tuoi insetti sono nel mio piatto" and it was marked wrong, but it was the last sentence in the set and went off without giving me the correct answer. Does anyone know what is wrong with it and why?
There's nothing wrong with it, it's supposed to do that. Recently a link was added that you can click that will show your last answer if you want. I think the text is just "Show my answer", and it appears on the middle right of the screen.
Your answer looks right to me (not that I'm a huge expert), but sometimes I've found that even though I know the right answer, I may make an error when I type it (usually because I'm typing too fast). Some typos will get by, but if it's a typo that's grammatically significant, like leaving off a plural ending, it gets marked wrong. That might be what happened to you.
How do we know what is feminine and what is masculine? Insects are masculine, but how do we know this?
Usually 'o'=masculine, 'a' = feminine. There are exceptions, especially to 'a' nouns. Nouns ending in 'e' can be either.
Why can't you say nel il mio piatto? I'm very confused as to when to put the article before a possessive and when not to.
See discussion above--nel = in +il (in the), so nel il = "in the the" [I made the same mistake!]
Why is it nel? Wouldn't that be 'in the' plate? How do you say 'on the'? I think I put su for the 'on the' but was marked incorrect.
I think nel piatto means "on the plate"--Italian says "in the" & English says "on the" but both mean "using the plate to serve food"; I think "su" would be "on top of the plate"--as in, piled on top of, rather than served on/in.
I think "su/sul" is probably like "in/nel": "on" vs. "on the", like "in" vs. "in the."
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Have been wondering when to use 'i tuoi' as opposed to 'i vostri'. Is either one right, or is it a case of "i tuoi" for 'your' and "i vostri" for yours? Help please!
"I tuoi" is the single form of "yours" and " i vostri" is the plural form. Both are correct when there's no context available to tell whether it's single or plural.
I wrote "I tuoi insetti sono nel il mio piatto" but I was wrong. I thought you are supposed to use an article before the possessive?
Why is it I tuoi insetti sono nel mio piatto, as opposed to I tuoi insetti sono nel il mio piatto?
"Nel" is already a contraction of "in" plus "il":
- Nel = in + il
Saying "nel il" means "in the the" (you'd be saying the article twice).
"Sul" is the contraction of preposition "su" (over, upon, on) plus article "il" (masculine "the"). All of the words below mean "over the" or "upon the":
- su + il = sul
- su + lo = sullo
- su + la = sulla
- su + l' = sull'
If you're a native speaker of English, this will be a little annoying when learning any Romance language (Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian). But conversely, it's very annoying for any Romance language speaker to learn the correct prepositions in English. In/on/at seem to have no rules for a Romance speaker. So, to answer your question, there is no "on" in Italian or in any of the other Romance languages. There is basically only "in".
- Portuguese: no prato (in the plate)
- Spanish: en el piato (in the plate)
- Italian: nel piato (in the plate)
- French: dans le plat (in the plate)
You are probably thinking of "sul", but that isn't "on" exactly (it CAN be depending on the sentence, but it also can NOT be). That's "over something" ("I put something over the plate", as in covering it). The problem is precisely that in all Romance languages "in" can be translated as "in", "on" or "at" in English. Which is always a nightmare for Romance speakers. Therefore, "in", "on" or "at" can all be translated as simply "in" in any of the Romance languages, depending on the case. Prepositions, articles and conjunctions are troublesome to learn in any language. Some use, some don't, some will pick something different, betraying all logic sense. In Portuguese, Spanish, French (and, incidentally, English) all say "que" for "that" in the sentence "I think that...". Italian solely decided "di" (of) sounded better.
- Portuguese: penso que não
- Spanish: pienso que no
- French: je pense que no
- Italian: penso DI no
Why did they pick "of"? Unfortunately that's the way languages behave. We have a lot of hard pills to swallow when it comes to prepositions.
"Vostri" is plural, so it would have to be "vostri piatti" (your plateS). Because the sentence is in the singular (piatto), you would need to use "vostro" (not "vostri").
Grammatically, there is nothing wrong with "sul mio piatto", but it means something else ("over my plate" or "on my plate", rather than "in my plate"). So that's not what the question asked. For more info, see my answer to user michael582015
It would of been nice if duolingo would of eased us into this. It's like learning articles for things all over again. Sheesh. In some cases, how do we know if if the sentence is referring to a male or female? They seem to lump things together. Not having fun with this at all.
