"I eat the dinner."
Translation:Io mangio la cena.
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2018
Nessun italiano? Nessuno tranne Vivi... Lui dice di essere italiano, ma se ritiene corretto dire "io mangio la cena" forse è vissuto poco in Italia. Oppure, sarebbe meglio che ritorni a scuola...
Having lived both northern and southern Italy and having read a bit about it, I wanted to clarify a bit: yes, we have a verb, cenare (regular), which means "to have dinner", as a standard and used in the whole country; in some regions of the north, especially in the north-west, "mangio/faccio pranzo/cena" is indeed very common. I would anyway advise to always use the verb "cenare" and "pranzare" (to have lunch).
Amici Italiani: I know that the LITERAL translation is "the dinner", but does this also mean "I'm eating dinner"?
- 1084
Yes, "Io mangio la cena" can be translated as either "I am eating the dinner" or "I eat the dinner."
Don't they mean the same in English? If so, then it can mean that! I am a bit lost, sorry...
"I'm eating dinner" is what you would say at the time you are actually performing the action of eating. "I eat dinner" (withOUT the "the") is what you would say for a habitual action- for example "I eat dinner at 6 pm" (meaning, EVERY night you eat dinner at 6 pm) or to show that it's something you ALWAYS do. "I eat dinner" means that you DO eat dinner every night- as opposed to someone who may not.
However, it would be hard to come up with a sceanrio where you would say "I eat THE dinner". Possible, but not the usual usage at ALL.
So my question is, IN ITALIAN how would I say "I'm eating dinner" (meaning RIGHT THIS VERY MOMENT I am eating dinner) AND how would I say "every night, I eat dinner at 6 pm"?
Grazie Mille!
We use the "presente indicativo" both for things we regularly do and for things we do right now.
We can also say "Sto cenando" instead of "Ceno", but "Ceno" is more common.
You rather say "Faccio colazione" without article.
With dinner, we tend to say "Ceno" (from "cenare")
We don't have a verb that identifies "to have breakfast" in one word (Germans instead have the word frühstücken)
I chose "Io mangio la cena", but it says "Mangio la cena" is the correct form. So does that mean that I should always omit the subject when the verb makes it clear who the subject is?
I also chose "io mangio la cena" and it accepted it as correct. No comments. But isn't "io mangio cena" also correct?
- 1084
If the English sentences says "I eat the dinner" then the Italian sentence has to have the definite article "la" as well. If the Italian sentence uses "la" before a direct object, it depends upon what is meant whether or not it will be used in the English sentence. That's because Italian "common" usage differs from English grammatical usage.
Would "mangio cena" be acceptable informally? Not that its a regular sentence to begin with. Unless its necessary the topic markers are dropped, right ?
Intanto la frase non è scritta con un italiano corretto... non si dice io mangio la cena... si dice io mangio cena... l'articolo non ci va
- 1296
In Italian it says "io ceno". It's not wrong "io mangio la cena" but it's little used. Sorry for my imperfect English. I'm Italian.
"Cena" means supper, "pranzo" is dinner, isn't it? The dictionary section of my old Ultimate Italian lesson book has "cenare" as "to have supper" and "dinner" as "pranzo."
