"How many coffees do you drink?"
Translation:Quanti caffè bevi?
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What about "How much coffee do you drink?"? Would it be: "Quanto caffè bevi?"?
Yes, "how much coffee" is "quanto caffè." "How many coffees/cups of coffee" is "quanti caffè."
But Italian is supoosed to be just grammatical. Caffe is singular so descriptive words should be singular too...
"Caffè" ( the accent is essential) is both singular and plural. Words that end in an accented vowel stay the same in the plural.
Also is "Quanto di caffè bevi?" correct? (something like "Io bevo una tazza di caffè." would be the answer)
That would be incorrect, because the original was "How many coffees do you drink" not "how much coffee do you drink". The difference is subtle, but there is a difference.
No one would ask in English 'How many coffees do you drink". Just sounds wrong. So question is, what is the way Italians usually ask this question. "Coffees" doesn't really exist. You would have to ask "How many cups of coffee do you drink".
THANK YOU....this was EXACTLY my thoughts on this .... why does DL always want us to learn sentences that NO ONE would ever say?
In Italian questions, the pronouns are typically placed at the beginning or the end: "Tu quanti caffè bevi?" or "Quanti caffè bevi tu?"
In Italian (as in Spanish), you can omit a personal pronoun provided that it can be infered from the verb conjugation (for example: bevi = tu bevi).
I understand that, but isn't that optional? I put "Quanti caffè bevi tu?" I'm not 100% sure so I don't want to report it just yet but in Spanish you can say it either way (it's just more common to omit the pronoun since the verb conjugation is specific, unlike in English).
Actually that's a pretty rare word order; the most common one would be "tu quanti caffè bevi?"
I also put "Quanti caffe tu bevi" and was surprised to have it marked wrong. Does somebody know for sure whether the order is the problem?
It doesn't change with plurality, perhaps because it was originally a loanword (from Arabic through the Turkish kahve) or perhaps in analogy with the other words accented on the last letter (accento tronco), which are usually invariant.
Quante = singular Quanti = plural Coffees is in plural. Caffè = singular Caffè = plural
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I cannot decipher between quanta, quanti, and quante for the life of me. Can someone explain?
'Quanti' and 'quante' both mean 'how many'. 'Quanti' is masculine; 'quante' is feminine.
e.g. Quanti libri leggi. Quante mele mangi.
'Quanto' and 'quanta' both mean 'how much'. 'Quanto' is masculine; 'quanta' is feminine.
e.g. Quanto zucchero mangi. Quanta acqua bevi (or quant'acqua bevi).
In English we usually say, "How many cups of coffee do you drink?" The given sentence (how many coffees) is not what most people would say. But when I translated "Quanti caffè bevi?" by "how many cups of coffee...." I was told it was wrong because I made coffee singular.
It can be. How much coffee do you drink? Usually about four cups a day.
Coffee is an uncountable noun in English. The noun cup in English is a countable noun; therefore, one can answer with "four cups". Sometimes a phrase is grammatically incorrect but perfectly fine to say in conversation. However, in this case, "how many coffees" is neither grammatically correct to say in English, nor do I personally ever hear anyone saying that in conversation. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
How important is word order? I was marked wrong for "Bevi quanti caffe'?", but I understood that one could imply a question just with one's tone of voice. Can anyone clarify, please?
I'm not sure you're right, but I think it's better for non-native speakers to follow strict order for the purpose of getting through to people.
I would like to understand the word order here as well. Why is Quanti bevi caffe incorrect word order? Thanks in advance to anyone who can explain this to me!
Bevono can't be acceptable as it means "they drink". The question asks about "you" and since we don't know which of the two "you"s in English they mean, the acceptable forms can be "bevi" (you, singular) or "bevete" (you, plural).
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That would be under tips in an earlier lesson when it talks about conjugating verbs. In general, when the ends in "ere": I -- "o" You -- "i" You all -- "ete" He/she/it (singular) -- "a/e" They (plural) -- "no" We -- "iamo"
You see this just with am/are/is. Sono, sei, siete, è, sono, siamo. With drink, bevo, bevi, bevete, beve, bevono, beviamo.
Hope this helps.
"Caffi" doesn't exist. (Maybe it's a family name, but not a word.)
"Caffè" doesn't change with the plural. I think all the words ending with an accent (and with consonant) don't change with the plural.
Il caffè -> i caffè
La verità -> le verità
Il gas -> i gas
Il neon -> i neon
L'hotel -> gli hotel
Il comò -> i comò
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I guess technically and grammatically "bevi" is correct. But as far as I know one should use "prendi" when talking about hot beverages (caffè, the)
I do not understand why: "Quanti caffe tu bevi" is incorrect. I understand for brevity the article (tu) is often dropped but it isn't a rule just a suggestion as I understand it.
I dont understand why Duoringo never explained the difference between how much coffee and how many coffees.
Yes, words that end in a vowel with an accent mark don’t change in the plural: il caffè/i caffè, la città/le città, etc.
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Imagine waking up at an Italian hospital and your doctor said "Quanti caffè bevi?" Plot twist: You drink too much coffee and gone unconscious from a heart attack.
I'm not catching the clue when to put 'quanti..quanto.. Quante '' please can someone help me with this
Argh what is the difference between quanta quanti and Quanto, one is feminine and one is masculine but what is the other
I cannot say, "How many coffees . . .?" in my native English language even in conversation, because in my head I would be correcting the incorrect English grammar. Coffee is a non-countable noun. Cups of coffee are countable. Liquids (milk, water) are one type of an uncountable noun. .
This is not good English - it should be "How many cups of coffee" or "How much coffee". Coffee is a substance like tea and you would not say "How many teas do you drink".
It would be correct if coffee was a feminine noun. Since it's a masculine one, it should be quanti.
in the previous question I was told that quante is many, now in this question I am told that quanti is many. Is this just totally random like Russian Roulette
I do not understand quante, quanti, quanto, and quanta. It seems to be totally random. My selection is always wrong. Are they singular/plural, masculine/feminine? I can get through the classes only if i write the correct translations for later
They match the thing they are describing the quantity for in gender (masculine and feminine) and number (singular and plural). So here it is "coffees" (caffè), which is masculine plural.
"Quanto" and "quanta" are singular, so they usually go with uncountable things (things you can't count) and mean "how much":
Quanta farina? How much flour? ("Farina" is feminine, so you use the feminine singular.)
Quanto zucchero? How much sugar? ("Zucchero" is masculine singular.)
"Quanti" and "quante" are used for countable things, meaning "how many":
Quanti uomini? How many men? ("Uomini" is masculine plural.)
Quante donne? How many women? ("Donne" is feminine plural.)
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I have been following this discussion for 6 years and this is the most comprehensible, helpful answer ever. THANK YOU!!!!!
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Why is Quante caffè bevi? wrong? Is it possible to ask about coffee as smth uncountable? In general? Not about cups of coffee?
I dont understand why "Quante caffe bevete" is wrong. To me this asks "how many coffees do you all drink?" In this statement we dont know the audience, it could be all women or whatever.
Coffees, wines, etc are all bad English... it is surely cups of/glasses of. Teaching bad English can't be good. But if this is ok to say in US English I'm happy to learn that too.
Can someone please explain to me why it's "quenti" instead of "quente"? Thank you.
Hey everyone, I hate this error that is happening to me. My answer is correct but I lose a heart. Has this happened to anyone else? I reported couple of times this error but it keeps happening and it is so annoying
This was happening to me also. I started using duolingo on my computer instead of my phone and it doesn't take away hearts.