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- Topic: Italian >
- "Il cavallo non è mio."
39 Comments
Well, that sentence sounds like you are saying that you have a horse, but that is not it. The sentence in the exercise doesn't imply that you have a horse at all.
I understand what you mean by this answer, but I still don't understand why or when to leave out the article before the possessive. How do I know when to put it, and when not to?
80
Yeah, I would love an answer to this. I don't get it. It's not because of the negation because there was another question that was:
"la zuppa non è la mia"
- 2681
I'm not a native Italian speaker, but if it's anything like it is in Spanish, my native language, then I could help. I might be wrong though, so take it with a grain of salt.
Ok, here it goes.
If you say "la zuppa non è LA mia" it implies that you do own a soup, but the one you're referring to is not yours. I understand it as if you were looking for a specific soup that you had previously identified as yours, and then you find one and realize it's not THE one you were looking for. So it's like saying "The soup is not the one that belongs to me" or something along those lines.
In contrast, if you say "il cavallo non è mio" (without the article "il" before "mio") you're simply saying that the horse is not yours, but it is unknown if you have one or not. It's just not yours.
Does that make any sense?
- 80
Yeah, I'm a mostly fluent Spanish speaker and that's how I assumed it worked as well, but I don't think so. My understanding now is that in Italian you absolutely need an article with possessive pronouns unless you're dealing with a) family or b) predicate nouns, in which case the article becomes optional.
Does this only apply to "mio"? or can it be applied to tuo, suo, etc?
I know. It is correct "Non e la mia" ( in the previous sentencec) but it is not correct "Non e mio".
Unbeliveble.
In a previous sentence it was written: "Non è LA mia"
In other one was "Il riso è mio". Not "IL mio"
So, why here is "il cavallo non e mio"???
This is so frustrating!!!!!!
I answered "it is not my horse" - why is this incorrect? Doesn't it mean the same thing as the horse is not mine? Can anyone explain why my answer is not correct?
Your answer has the same content but a different wording. "It is not my horse" would translate into "Non è il mio cavallo". It's better to stick to the given sentence, until there are easy sentences, at least, that's my two cents.
Im no good at italian but those two sentences share meaning but in yours "it" is the subject and in the other the horse is the subject
- 2313
I am not sure where I would use this sentence. Do horses go missing in Italy a lot?
How about something useful like, "The postillion has been struck by lightning."
- 213
Previous sentence was "I cavalli sono i miei" and this is "Il cavallo non è mio". Duolingo gives and Duolingo takes.
It doesn't make any sense.....i write the right answer and still it doesn't let me continue...
I put the horse isn't mine. Isn't is a conjunction of is and not so there should be no problem here...
Is mio and mia under the same masculine and feminine rules as other nouns?
that is of course the literal translation , however in normal idiomatic English we would say its not my horse
I put "il mio" but I have just read the article is OPTIONAL following a form of "essere" which sono is? Why was it wrong please?
Does anyone else have trouble understanding the female voice in this series?
Probably because "that" is the subject word of your sentence, so basically that sentence could be said if someone put a cat in your face and asked if it was your horse, whereas the sentence for the question is more so if someone showed you a horse and it was not yours, hope that helped clear things up! :)
No, in english it translates to 'it's not my horse". Marking this as wrong is a mistake.
It doesn't. In the example sentence, the horse is the subject. In your sentence, it is the object with a reflexive pronoun as the subject. Syntactically, these are two different sentences. Very similar meaning, yes, but not identical.
I disagree with you; I get what you're saying, but in english it does mean the same as 'it's not my horse.' I hate Duolingo!
But let's look at it from different scenarios, scenario one. You are called by your friend who says they have found a horse, and they are wondering if it is yours, in reply you would say "the horse is not mine". Second scenario, you are out and about looking for your lost horse with your friend and they come back with a cat, you would say "it's not my horse". Also please take into account that Italian is not English, so their way of saying things is very different from English. So don't get mad at Duolingo, people took time and dedication to create these courses for you. Please understand.
