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- "Io non ho la mucca, ho il cu…
"Io non ho la mucca, ho il cuoio."
Translation:I do not have the cow, I have the leather.
164 Comments
159
"I weep for you," the Walrus said: / "I deeply sympathize." / With sobs and tears he sorted out / Those of the largest size, / Holding his pocket-handkerchief / Before his streaming eyes.<< / :-)
But can you tell, from the sound, the difference between 'to', 'too', or 'two'? Or, more relevantly, 'oar' from 'or'? It's confusing, but eventually people learn to distinguish from context.
Incidentally, Italians have a really hard time pronouncing 'h', and so typically do so silently: the words 'and' and 'hand' become indistinguishable!
It depends on the speaker, I'd say. I know people where it is really easy to tell the difference between 'to', 'too' and 'two', but this might also be the result of the years we've known one another. The 'w' sound is absent in both of the first words, after all.
'Or' and 'Oar' should sound different, what with the 'oa' sound being slightly longer and changing, but again, it depends on the speaker.
308
you are exactly right. in the US midwest there would be no discernable difference, at all, ever, under any circumstances. there's a reason that duowl accepts 'i don't have the cow or the leather.", because there is no difference in the standard pronunciation. this situation arises for duowl in french between singular and plural subject/verb combinations, too. probably in other languages also.
308
nonsense. who is 'they'? can you read the minds of nonexistent people. there are several ways that you could say they didn't have either, and all would be valid. (possibly--"Non ho né la mucca né il cuoio.") (possibly--"Io non ho la mucca o il cuoio.")
the author may be a Monty Pyton fan or perhaps a conflicted vegetarian. On the other hand it could be an idiom e.g."I do not have the cow, i have the leather" would be something we could say in Milan at a fashion show. But what about other sentences I've learned like "The knife is in the boot" (I 'll try it in Naples?) or "The tiger eats the butterfly" (something poetic to say while strolling by Circus Maximus).
1927
I don't mind the lack of sense in duolingo. It just teaches you the construction of the language which is fine
The word mucca actually is the Italian version of 'moo cow', and it became the normal word for 'cow'. (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/mucca)
122
Why is "I haven't the cow" wrong? For duolingo the right version is "I haven't got the cow" but what is the differences between this two versions? I'm Italian native and I hope in your help
Fabio149: In my mind your answer is correct and should be accepted. It does sound slightly more formal or "educated" but I see nothing wrong with it. Where you might hear that construction is in the phrase: "I haven't the slightest idea" which is the same as saying "I haven't got the slightest idea."
122
Yes, it's true what you've wrote! But i don't understand why duolinguo don't accept both versions. For me is an error! Correct me if I'm wrong. So, thank you very much for the answer.
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Mmm, I'm not sure but I think that I found the answer to my question. For duolingo the two possibilities are "I don't have the cow" or "I haven't got the cow" because you can use "I haven't" only when it's followed by a verb (past participle).I think is the right motivation!
515
Let me think...
You had a cow, the cow died, you had to scrap the meat but could keep the leather. A friend calls you and asks about the cow; you use this sentence to open up the conversation about your misfortunes.
Or: Playing a game when various players have various (limited) resources, one being a cow and one being a leather, plus others. It could be either a trading game (you have to collect certain resources by trading with others) or a guessing game (you have to guess the resource someone has based on some clues). Now I want to play the trading game and I don't even know the rules. :(
It does make sense! It's pretty clear what it means literally: the hide: you have it, the cow: you don't. That's all you need to know to use this phrase to learn Italian.
Metaphorically, it seems to me that it's talking about having the finished product, not just the means. The emphasis could be on the lack of means, or the possession of the finished product.
...or, as boldsirrobin says, it could be about only having the stuff you need.
1615
io non ho la mucca o il cuoio not accepted 23 Apr 2018, and Duo didn't allow me to report it.
25
''i dont own the cow, i own the leather'' -- marked as incorrect. isnt 'owning' and 'having' the same as 'ho'?
cuoio derives from Latin corium, cf. French cuire, and is related to carnivorous and cognate with English scrape, all going back to Indo-European, so leather has been around for a long time. Dante portrays a man in paradise girded in bone and leather, so perhaps one need not be a vegan to get there... Bellincion Berti vid' io andar cinto di cuoio e d'osso, e venir da lo specchio la donna sua sanza 'l viso dipinto;
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Sharon44798. A cow, just so you know, is always female. A bull, or if castrated, a steer would indicate a male.
307
This is a run-on sentence. To hear it, it didn't make sense. Then i see it's two different sentences.
Like many such sentences, this one too makes very little if any sense. They're counterproductive not only because they're frustrating, but because even if we hear the words correctly, we doubt they're really saying what we think they are withthe result that we wind up writing something else down and of course are marked incorrect. Contrary to what this one claims, I did have a cow.
From what I have gathered, DL is trying to teach us how to use proper grammar. Remember in your earlier education, how the schools taught grammar in work books and such? They would take these throw-away sentences with words that have some relation but that have little to no use in the real world. I think this is the case here!
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First of all that comment was a joke, jeez. Calm done. Secondly, I'd argue we do learn some sentences on Duolingo. It's not always phrases you can find in a phrase book but still sentences that make sense and have a probability of been used. This one doesn't. You should google how to have a sense of humour and take a joke on an online forum.
These sentence discussions are to help people understand the sentence. Part of a moderator's job is to remind people to avoid cluttering these discussions with jokes.
...but I didn't take your comment as a joke, I took it at face value, and answered the point you made.
Yes, sometimes we learn sentences that are useful. This isn't one of those, this sentence is one of many that are here to help us learn vocabulary and understand grammar.