31 Comments
why doesn't DL ever use the formal you and even marks it wrong. What do native Italians do? Can you use the informal you with anyone?
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Formal you (Lei) is used if you are talking with an unknown person older than you.
https://www.duolingo.com/comment/7007596
EDIT @Bar292933
"Lei" is used as formal "tu" for both genders
must that old person be a female or could it be also a male one, in case "Lei" is used?
You're right. It can be the formal "you". I reported it, and told them it will confuse people later on if they say it's wrong. I don't know if they'll fix it or not, though. Hope so. I think it's strange that they don't teach the formal you from the beginning. Do they want us all to seem rude and overly familiar when talking to people?
Vuole is for he/she/it AND formal you. Vuoi is informal "you want", but "voule" is formal you want.
And still, noone has yet wondered what that phrase could possibly mean in terms of sense? And why DL make so funny phrases from time to time?
conjunction of "di" (of) and "gli" (the). It's always used for nouns that have the article "gli"!
While you are correct, what you are speaking of is when 'di' is used as a prepositional article. Here I believe 'di' is used as a partitive article. See this link:
http://italian.about.com/od/grammar/a/italian-partitive-articles.htm
I also thought vuole was you because i remember a native speaker asking (me) Che cosa vuole fare? Lol i didn't notice that DL never uses the formal. Di they use it in Rome? That's where I'm going. Is this program going to make me sound disrespectful when i try speaking Italian there?
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She wants some red specs is marked as wrong even though the drop down hint for 'occhiali' mentions 'specs'
why eyeglasses. the translation of gli occhiali was given as spectacles. Has this changed?
It's just another word for the type of glasses mentioned in this context. Some people do say eyeglasses. I don't actually know of anyone that ever says "spectacles" over "eyeglasses". Unless there's a distinctly different Italian word that literally means "eyeglasses" it probably should be an an accepted translation.
"would like" is conditional tense and the form of the verb is then "vorrebbe"
Here I believe 'di' is used as a partitive article, not a prepositional article. See this link:
http://italian.about.com/od/grammar/a/italian-partitive-articles.htm
