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- "Io non gli manco."
166 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!
1254
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That woud be "la manca": it's an outdated term, which used to mean "the weak/lacking (hand)", just like "la destra" means "the dexterous (hand)".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!!!
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
But isnt gli plural? I dont get why you should use gli when it translate to he
- 189
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!
- 1188
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.
- 731
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!
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.
- 754
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.
- 754
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.
- 425
Hi Lisa! What i don't understand is the use of "gli". I thought "gli" had to do with plural. How is it a pronoun for 3rd person singular? Could you perhaps provide insight for this?
- 1053
Hello. If you read my explanation above, you will see that gli, is not just used for for the plural we, as with a direct pronoun, but also as an indirect pronoun for the 3rd person masculine singular. This is covered in the clitics section, and as many people who have covered this section will tell you, it can be really confusing. To give an example of the use of this indirect pronoun, I will use an example from the clitic review. Lui dà il fiore a Maria. He gives the flower to Maria. We can replace Maria with le, the indirect female singular pronoun: Lui le dà il fiore, he gives the flower to her. Now for the gli. Maria dice grazie a lui. Maria says thanks to him. We can replace a lui with gli: Maria gli dice grazie. Notice the indirect pronoun precedes the verb in both cases. So now we go to our original sentence, Io non gli manca. The proper translation is; He does not miss me. This can be confusing again for the native English speaker, because we see Io in front and we think that it should be, "I do not miss him", as you already know gli here is not for we but for the indirect 3rd person pronoun him. Here is where you need to re-think like an Italian. It is not I who misses him, but rather I who is not missed by him, so think of the sentence as I am not missed by him, and then it makes more sense. I hope this helped you. I am not a native Italian speaker, but I have been studying the language for some time now and I have learned a lot from my Italian teacher and from the community.
- 425
Thank you so much for yor explanation! So, just to double check that i understand correctly: The word "gli" has two different meanings! 1. It can be an article ("the" for plural). 2. It can mean "to him". The word "gli" in this sentence, means "a lui" [and not "the" as in for example "gli occhi"].
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
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.
It helps being a francophone x) as in french we use manquer in the exact same way. ' mi manca, il me manques'
- 965
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).
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
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"
OK, here's my plan regarding "manco." 1) Try to power through Duolingo with as few wrong answers as possible. 2) Never use it. 3) When I get to Italy someday, hope I never hear it.
- 192
Io non gli manco. Think of this sentence as follows : 1) Io manco= subject +verb= I + cause pain due to my absence;
2) Gli = indirect objet corresponding to 3rd person singular, masculin = TO HIM
The statement becomes: "I cause HIM pain due to my absence"
3) Add "NON " = I don't cause HIM pain due to my absence. In other words:" He isn't suffering because of my absence" or "he doesn't miss me" We could also say: "My absence does not pain him"
- 1188
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.
gli is also (apparently) a pronoun, and can mean (to) him or (to) them. read the above comments by marziotta and temporalthings for more info
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.
- 1597
It is impossible to think or guess. Just you have it by heart and practice. Hope i will meet it again soon.
- 409
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...
I believe that if you think of "mancare" as meaning "to be missing to" then it works very much the same as "piacere" which means "to be pleasing to". I agree it's sure different than we'd say it in English.
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?
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.
- 754
This is an excellent and very clear explanation. Hopefully this will clear things up for everyone. Grazie.
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.
- 1254
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
- 674
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!
I do not understand the use of the word gli in this sentence. I thought it is used for the plural as in gli uomini. One comment below said the verb meant to miss as in grieving. Does it suggest over hours of time or days or plural passage of memories?
Your question has been answered in other comments on this page, but it may help if you review Italian pronouns. As you'll see, "gli" is the indirect object pronoun for the third person singular masculine "lui" (he).
https://www.iwillteachyoualanguage.com/learn/italian/italian-tips/italian-pronouns
You are correct in saying that "gli" is also used as the plural definite article for some plural masculine nouns, but it has a different function in that case.
"Gli", like other words in Italian (and other languages) can be used in more than one way. You can almost always tell by context how these words are being used. In this case, since "gli" is followed by a verb, and not by a plural noun, we know it's not the plural definite article.
As for the verb "mancare", it does not suggest a period of time any more than "He missed me" does in English. It could be that he missed me for a few minutes, a few days, or many years.
This post explains more about "mancare" and other verbs that can be challenging for English speakers:
http://icebergproject.co/italian/2014/12/italian-word-speed-dates-bastare-mancare-and-piacere/
This makes no sense to me. GLI is the for some plural nouns. Why is it even in this sentence !?!?! I would translate Lui non manca mi
Sorry, I just don't get the use of "gli." Please someone explain? Manco is difficult enough without throwing "gli" in there as well!!
shouldn't this be Mio non gli manco? Since Io doesn't mean ME, but "I"
From Google Translate, Gli Manca = HE MISSES, AND Le Manca = SHE MISSES.... So, by knowing which is used, the sentence makes sense, EXCEPT: THE "Io" should be mi or mio for me
Strangely, "gli" means "to him" or "for him" as well as "the". The sentence literally translates to "To him, I am not missing" or "I am not missing for him". In English we'd say that "he doesn't miss me". Here are some links that might help: https://blogs.transparent.com/italian/mancare/
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.
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".
- 754
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.
how on earth is thist statement He does not miss me.... translated into English this definitely would mean io = me non= not/don't gli/them manco miss...a literal translation would be I DO NOT MISS THEM I am not an expert but this is very poorly phrased and translated in my opinion
- 754
Because here gli is being used as an indirect pronoun, and so in this example it is referring to He.
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!
