125 Comments
Literally: To him, I am not missing.
Semi-literally: I don't make him feel like I'm missing.
Idiomatically: He doesn't miss me.
Thanks! This sentence even confuses Google translator: https://translate.google.com/#it/en/Io%20non%20gli%20manco.%20 (2014-08-13)
It's still confused. As of today (1.4.17) it translates it as "I did not miss". Not even close!
703
Google Translate on 19/10/18: "I do not miss them". It's not there yet, but at least we're in the present tense and it's included an object!
when I look up manco in my italiano-inglese dictionary, it is defined as 'left'?
That woud be "la manca": it's an outdated term, which used to mean "the weak/lacking (hand)", just like "la destra" means "the dexterous (hand)". There are still derivatives in use: for instance the usual term for a left-handed person is "mancino". It only shares an origin with the verb "mancare".
Butterfly in Spanish literally means, mantequillamosca or in italian burromosca.
With THIS sentence, I think it's just easier to never put yourself in a situation where you would need to say it. AND if you should find yourself in a situation where you would have to say it, CHANGE THE SUBJECT FAST!!!
- 153
What, exactly, indicates that it is "he", and not "it" or "she"? Manco?
When she is missing me, is it "manca?" And what about "it misses me"?
Gli is he.. rather than "lo" which can mean he or it, and she would be "le"
Le manco = she is missing me Mi manchi = I miss you Ti manca = you miss it/ her Mancano le settimane = weeks are missing
- 293
I think this manco word is going to be on my list of words never to use. There's already a few of them there. I'll say something else and go about it the long way.
I think it's the "gli" but i'm still getting my head around this verb. As in "Io non le manco" would be "she does not miss me.
As an english speaker the idea that the verbs action is based around the other person causing the nostalgia is the confusing part.
Think of English "missing" as when someone has disappeared "he is missing". That is what mancare means; not "feeling the loss of".
The same goes for Spanish speakers. I usually can understand why a verb is used in a certain way but this one puzzles me. If I want to say I miss you in Spanish I say "Yo te extraño" or She misses me is Ella me extraña or Me extraña which could be he, she or it. It is going to be hard to remember this one!
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Getting more and more difficult by the day! Must make sure nobody misses me if trying to speak italian, as I wouldn't understand them!
Duo says this can mean both "they don't miss me" and "he doesn't miss me". Why is that?
"gli" can mean both "a lui" and "a loro"
"Io non manco a lui" = He doesn't miss me
"Io non manco a loro" = They don't miss me
A long review for pronouns, I don't know if you are ready yet, in case not you can only peek a little bit to have a general idea! :) http://duolingo.com/#/comment/233855 FAQ #11
"Mancare" works in a different way from English, like "Piacere". http://duolingo.com/#/comment/233855 FAQ #10
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Noooo, not piacere and the backwards sentences again... Just when I thought I was getting the hang of Italian :)
Literally "I'm not by him missed" - OK, I need to remember how these sentences are constructed!
aaaah fantastic. thanks. I was about to ask if "gli" means both "to him" / "to them". Is "gli" also the correct type for plural feminine? (eg. le donne)
Yes, because it is an indirect object, gli is 'to them (m/f)' and 'to him'.
Be careful, it is totally different for the direct object case.
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Io non gli manco.
Io = I
non = not
gli = to/for him/it
manco = I am missing
Literally: I not to him am missing.
Semi literally: To him I am not missing.
English idiomatically: He doesn't miss me.
It helps being a francophone x) as in french we use manquer in the exact same way. ' mi manca, il me manques'
- 232
Yes indeed, you are quite right (but without the "s" -the 3rd person singular ends in "e" : il me manque ; the "s" would be ok if I was missing you : tu me manques).
One simple but stupid thought from someone who is now hopelessly confused: since when did "gli" stop meaning "the," as in "gli animali?" (Third time going all the way through the Italian module.)
It is strange isn't it? That "gli" means "to him" as well as "the, masculine plural". And "Le" means "to her" as well as "the, feminine plural". It's also strange that "gli" means "to them", whether masculine or feminine. (Yikes, Italian is so much more complicated than Spanish.) We probably have equally strange things in English but we are so used to them we don't even notice.
Because 'non mi manca' means: I don't miss it/her/him (literally: It/she/he is not missing to me).
'Io non gli manco' means: He doesn't miss me (literally: i am not missing to him)
This is so funny: While trying to make sense of this one, I put "mancare" into Google Translate and got "to miss" in English but, since I'm trying to learn both Italian and Spanish at the same time, I translated "mancare" from Italian to Spanish and Google translated it as "señorita". :) Google must be going through English to translate Italian to Spanish: mancare -> to miss -> señorita
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O.K I have been following the thread here and have done some research and asked some friends in the know about this, and also checked out the link provided by wynrich, which is a very good one. Basically as my Italian teacher also reminds me, often you cannot translate word for word with Italian, especially in cases where mancare and piacere are used. To translate this sentence so that it makes more sense to the English speaker you must think rearrange the wording, so that literally what is being said here is I am not missed by him, gli being the indirect pronoun for him. It took me a while to realize this , as I could not understand why Io was used, if it was He does not miss me, but when you translate it the way I did, it makes complete sense. Hopefully this helps.
This is one of the clearest explanations I've seen, because a lot of people get hung up about the fact that the subject/verb are first person singular, but in English, the sentence is not really about the first person. And you're also right that we have to get past trying to force Italian syntax to track one-to-one with English, because it doesn't always work that way.
This is not easy, because it requires re-training our brains to stop resisting, and instead to adapt to a new way of thinking.
The good news for people studying Italian is that the Romance languages, including Italian, aren't nearly as challenging in terms of word order as languages like German or the Slavic languages.
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Exactly. The native English speaker, such as myself, does have to retrain the brain, and that is challenging, but little by little I am getting a handle on it.
I get confused by the 'Io'. would the setence not be correct just as 'Non gli manco' ?
Yes, sort of, "faltar" too, as in "Yo no le falto" / "Yo no le hago falta" as it would also mean "Él no me extraña"
- 604
It is first person but mancare means "to be missing" rather than "to miss". So "manco" means "I am missing" rather than "I miss"
peeking under 'gli' it says that this is used before a vowel, but here it precedes a consonant.
At last it has become clear - gli is the dative form of the definite article, meaning "to him" or "to them", as well as the nominative plural. So the sentence literally means "I am not to him missing" ie he does not miss me. But I agree with BillofKempsey that it is slightly unfair to throw this at us without warning, specially as part of a "practice" session!!
I was confused by "gli". I am even more confused by "the dative form of the definite article". What's going on?
A dative pronoun at that. I don't remember having seen one up to this point. Don't you just love the way Duolingo just throws things at us?
no, reflexive is he / himself, or me / myself, etc.
you can see thwe reflexive pronouns here:
http://www.cyberitalian.com/en/html/gra_prpr.html
How can it be They don't miss me. (Given by Duo when rejecting my answer.) Gli - to him I.O. Right?
In Latin languages, it's perfectly correct. Think in Italian, not in English.
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It is impossible to think or guess. Just you have it by heart and practice. Hope i will meet it again soon.
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So, am I to understand that this is only somewhat similar to "piacere,' where the verb is conjugated in relation to the thing doing the pleasing and not the thing being pleased? If this were the same, "He does not miss me" would mean that "mancare" should be conjugated in relationship to to HE... But it's not... Really strange language y'all got. Sublimely beautiful but straight up random bordering on ridiculous sometimes...
- 1095
gli = he. It's confusing because, by looking at the English translation, you would think "he" is the subject, but not with the Italian verb mancare. Mancare (to miss) and piacere (to please) are not like other verbs. You use the object form of pronouns, like "him" (gli). Read some of the comments here about this sentence and you will get the idea.
The last time I found this English sentence the translation was, 'A lui non manco' This seems easier to understand. What does 'gli' apply to as he and me are both singular?
Ugh to figuring out how to correctly use mancare (and piacere for that matter)!!
There are 88 comments and I am not clear about the correct translation. Is there anybody in DL capable of clarifying? Could you say: HE IS NOT MISSING ME?
And just when I was finally getting comfortable with the use of "piacere" !!
The person who is being missed here is the subject "Io", which is why the verb is "manco", not "manca". "He" is the indirect object, "gli".
As the other responses have explained, the literal translation is "I am not missing to him", or less literally, "I am not missed by him", and in natural English, "He does not miss me".
For the verb "mancare", the subject is the one who is missed, and the indirect object is the one who misses that person.
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This is an excellent and very clear explanation. Hopefully this will clear things up for everyone. Grazie.
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This is now a male voice and even though I pronounce words correctly, I'm marked wrong. When I repeat after the female voice, it's correct, but I'm always marked wrong repeating after a male's voice. DL needs to fix this issue.
- 703
Mancare doesn't mean 'to miss', but is more like 'to be missed by'. Io (I) non (am not) gli (by him) manco (missed)
It approximately translates as that. There are many other posts on here explaining all the grammar, so check it out if you're still confused
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My head hurts! Normally, I wouldn't bother posting about this (ahem, DL please take notice) if there was a way to follow this discussion when studying from an android device without posting something.
I'm copying/pasting a reply I left a few months ago, which I realize you can't see on your phone:
The person who is being missed here is the subject "Io", which is why the verb is "manco", not "manca". "He" is the indirect object, "gli".
As the other responses have explained, the literal translation is "I am not missing to him", or less literally, "I am not missed by him", and in natural English, "He does not miss me".
For the verb "mancare", the subject is the one who is missed, and the indirect object is the one who misses that person.
To answer your question specifically: Since "lui" is the subject pronoun for "he", it is not used in this sentence, because "He" is not the subject of the sentence in Italian (I realize that it is in English, but as you can see from the explanation, the entire sentence structure is different in Italian).
The subject in Italian is "Io", and the indirect object (meaning "to him") is "gli". So the pronoun for "he" is here, it's just not the subject form "lui".
Hope this makes sense!
No, no puede ser ;)
Contrary to Spanish I guess:
- Io non gli manco - He doesn't miss me
- Io non le manco - She doesn't miss me
Additionally since there was no indirect clitic pronoun for "loro", it's usually also accepted as:
- Io non gli manco - They don't miss me
You can actually hear "gli" for "her", but it's considered dialectal or slang.
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Because here gli is being used as an indirect pronoun, and so in this example it is referring to He.
No, it literally means "I am not missing to him". We'd say that "he doesn't miss me". Here are some links that might help:
https://blogs.transparent.com/italian/mancare/
https://blogs.transparent.com/italian/mancare/
This one really annoys me. Do people really talk this way? In my head, it's like trying to be all, what to they say, flowery as in with literature? Trying to speak in a way as was done two centuries ago.
I, he doesn't miss? Is this realistic in everyday conversation? I hope not...Lol.
I'm certainly not an expert on Italian, I hope a native speaker will answer this. However, just because it is awkward translated literally into English doesn't mean it's awkward to Italian speakers. It's a similar construction to "non mi piace il formaggio" which literally means "Cheese is not pleasing to me" but usually translated to "I don't like cheese." I think a literal translation of "Io non gli manco" is I am not missing to him".
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Yes this is what I have discovered as well. You must re-think the way your translate the sentence, as to the Italian it makes perfect sense.
This, absolutely, makes no sense for me.
Io non gli manco = I do not miss him
Here, let me try to help.
Io non gli manco = I am not missed by him
because ...
The verb 'mancare' is special in that it gets conjugated, well to us it seems it gets conjugated backwards. But if you look at the 'literal' translation I just gave, you can see that in this sentence, 'I' am doing the 'not missing' ... hence 'Io non .. manco.'
The word 'gli' is a clitic (it serves as an indirect object pronoun ... by him, for him, to him ... (also to them etc, but that is another story)). In this form, the clitic usually precedes the verb.
And the last piece of the puzzle is to know (which you apparently do) that we do not use this form in English, it is considered 'weak' to 'deflect' who is really doing the action ... so we should endeavor not to say 'I was shot' or 'My car was hit' ... because it just begs the question, by whom? In the same fashion, we would probably not say 'I am not missed by him', but rather 'He does not miss me.'
Okay, so DL won't accept your answer... I WAS guessing because "missed" is past tense in English, but apparently it does not accept "I am not missing to him" either. I realize that is an awkward English construction that would not be used in conversation - but my mind ends up thinking "missed by" or "missing to" for mancare (as suggested my many here, and VERY helpful!), so each time I come across one of these unexpectedly that is what I tend to type. Growl. I will not only learn Italian, I will learn to speak DL yet!
