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- "Your insects are on my plate…
"Your insects are on my plate."
Translation:I tuoi insetti sono nel mio piatto.
138 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"??
ahhhh of course - nel = ne + il. "nel il mio piatto" is repeating the article twice
bruh wtf, duolingo never explained before that ne is a word and that nel is a component of ne and il. That is actually very ❤❤❤❤❤❤
ohhhhhhhhh. but I thought the article always goes with the possessive unless it's in front a singular family member
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.
I know i'm sort of late, but i saw on another post that in Italy food is thought to be 'in' plates and not on them, which explains the use of nel.
Nel is for any word where il would be used, nello is for when lo would have been used
Apparently there are a lot of insects on plates in Italy, along with snakes in boots, which is why they like to use electric shoes to keep the pests out.
Electric shoes make for good torture. As they say 'resistance is futile'.
What's with the creepy sentences, DL? Of the endless possibilities, it seems you could think of something more normal.
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...
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I think if someone's insects were on my plate, I would end the sentence with exclamation points!!!
"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").
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.]
So why does the hint give "sul" and when used in the answer, you are marked wrong. Please could someone explain please.
Because when you hover over a word to get a hint, duolingo gives you the meaning of that word, regardless of the context. So even though in that instance sul meant ‘in the’ duolingo will always say it means ‘on the’.
I put "...sul mio piatto" (based on the hover) and it was accepted (Oct 31, 2020). I'm a beginner, so I'm not sure which feels better in Italiano.
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").
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
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.
Because unlike Spanish, when talking about possession you need the article before any possessive words unless talking about singular family members. E.g. Il mio leone, i miei insetti, i miei nonni, mio zio.
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.
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.
I totally know what you mean! I'm on clothing now and i keep confusing all the words! I don't know the actual way to figure out if its male or female, but what i've kinda just figured is when you are using words like the or my and other things that have multiple words for one word, i like to match the last letter of the word with the or my. For example, 'il mio cappotto' i chose il mio and not la mia or le mie because cappotto ends with an o and so does mio. another example 'la farfalla' i know i should use la not il or gli because la and farfalla ends with an a. so i'm pretty sure a's and e's are feminine and o and u are masculine not sure about i yet. I'm still trying to figure this out myself. if i am completely wrong about this please lmk so i don't fail italian lol
i'm so confused on how to know when to use which word. like le or il mio or mia things like that. Any tips?
For masculine words (ending in o, i, u) and words beginning with a vowel use il mio, i miei. For feminine words (ending in a, e) use la mia, Le mie.
The difference between il mio, i miei, la mia, le mie is just based off of weather or Not the word being possessed is singular or plural
Why can mio not follow piatto? Does the possessive always follow the noun it is possessing?
Why is "i vostri insetti sono nel mio piatto" not accepted, assuming it's a group of people who own a single plate?
just grammar rules ...you have to put the article before the possessive in most cases.
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I have used a possessive before with nel or nell ... etc and it was wrong because the possession was implied with nel. So i left it out and it was included in this answer.. ?
In all the practice ‘on my plate’ was ‘nel mio piatto’, now I suddenly get the correction ‘sopra il mio piatto’. I’m puzzled. Can anyone explain to me why this must be ‘sopra’?
I think I’ve found out: in (nel) is used for food that is ment to be on/in the plate, sopra is used for ‘on top of’ so in this case not the food!
This is so stupid and demotivatin! WHY whole sebtence all over again instead of just back for review and correction?!!
It's so weird some one would bring their insects to a dinner, let's say, and them free...I don't know. This is sooooooo weird
You are on the right track just the spelling is slightly off. It should read "I tuoi insetti sono nel mio piatto"
Sorry, my mistake. Is getting late here in Vegas, time to go to bed. Buonanotte!
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Please could you tell me why you can't have i vostri here? Your could be singular or plural and insects are plural, yet it was marked wrong.
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Thanks Charlotte. That's rather what I thought, but being new to this, thought I'd check. I'll put it down to one of Duo Lingo's idiosyncracies!
