- Forum >
- Topic: Italian >
- "Le gatte bevono acqua."
52 Comments
"The cats" doesn't have any gender information, therefore it can be translated as "the female cats" (le gatte) and "the male cats" (i gatti).
but cat is a masculin noun, no? like in french... le masculin l'emporte....en grammaire
Thanks was confused about this as well....italian seems to be a gender language lol
But what is the difference in the pronunciation between gatti and gatte? I mean in case if there was no definite article it will be difficult to differentiate just by listening
https://forvo.com/search/gatte/it/
https://forvo.com/search/gatti/it/
For me the difference is pretty evident. But I am a native speaker... maybe we need somebody learning the language here.
Grazie Marziotta, it is pretty clear to me now, gatte is pronounced more lightly than gatti, as if it was gatteh, while gatti I have to emphasize on the ending like gatty, again thanks a lot and have a wonderful day :-)
"le gatte" is feminine plural, used if you know all the cats to be female, otherwise you would use the masculine plural "i gatti".
How come you use just acqua and not l'acqua? From my understanding in Duolingo, you almost always use articles.
L'acqua means "the water" where as acqua alone just means "water", the l there is a contraction of la since acqua starts with a vowel
277
Not quite. L'acqua can mean 'water' in general (as it has been used reguarly up to this point in the Italian lessons) whereas 'acqua' alone means an unspecified amount of water. Both can be translated simply to 'water' in English.
It seems like every other time acqua is never seen without the article, regardless of the literal translation. Is this just completely arbitrary?
If you did not know the gender of thr cats would you use the masculine version gatti?
Because 'gatte' is feminine, so it requires the feminine 'le'. If it were 'gatti', then tyou would have been right and the article would have been 'i'.
- 179
le is the feminine plural, and i is the masculine plural... so, in this case, the cats are female
Does anyone have trouble with speaking in the mic? I can pretty much say anything and it will be correct!
The translation of
The cats, they drink water
would be
Le gatte, loro bevono acqua. - I gatti, loro bevono acqua.
None of the versions sound natural to me.
This all supposes that you know the gender, comming across cats how are you to know their gender. What do you say.
accidently translated it using google and got The spouse they drink water.
I thought 'the cats' was 'i gatti' not 'le gatte' - feminine cats?
Why is "Cats...." or "The cats...." correct? How does one know if the "I" is there because cats is plural or if one is intending to say "The cats"?
Does this masc/fem change apply for all animals? For example, what would a group of female birds be?
A dictionary is useful for finding out if there is a féminine form. According to mine, there is no feminine form of "uccello". Other animals do have a féminine form but if you don't know the sex of a particular animal(s) it is more normal to use the masculine form.
Because the sentence starts "le gatte". If the speaker did not know the gender of the cats he/she would most probably use the masculine plural, "i gatti". Female plural is normally only used if you know they are all female.
Gatto is a masculine word. The gender of the theoretical cats is irrelevant. Duolingo be trippin.
"gatto" is masculine but "gatta" (plural "gatte") is feminine. When you know the cat you are referring to is female, it is automatic to use the feminine word.
I've never heard of the word gatta, as far as my father told me, who was italian himself, is that the word for cat is gatto, i never ever heard him say gatta. And we had a female cat at the time.
Referring to a known female cat in the masculine form is generally because the person thinks of the animal as an object, a bit like saying "it" for the family cat in English. Someone who cares for an animal will refer to it in the correct form.
From what I understand if the sex of a group of cats is unknown or mixed, it would be I gatti and masculine is predominately used if in doubt. Cats and dogs can be referred to as masculine or feminine. In this case they are female.
