"La formica è sullo zucchero."
Translation:The ant is on the sugar.
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I remember formica because it's the type of kitchen counter tops that we had when I was a kid. You're way makes much more sense and sounds much smarter. But thinking Italian formica (not that out countertops were Italian) does help me remember that the Italian word is formica. I had already learned that Spanish was hormiga, Portuguese was formiga and French was fourmi. Even if I thought about formic acid, that trick would have played out.
You're right. Thank you. I don't know why I did that. Spanish is the language I speak most often except for English. But I guess I don't talk about ants much. I had noticed the similarity across the four languages for the words ant, fly and bee. For some reason that has always seemed to make me wonder about why butterfly is so unique in each language. But obviously I blurred the lines too much. I am correcting my post.
The forms of Su:
Sul - Used for masculine singular nouns: (La camicia è sul ragazzo)
Sui - Used for masculine plural nouns: (Il cibo è sui panini)
Sulla - Used for feminine singular nouns: (L'insetto è sulla finestra)
Sulle - Used for feminine plural nouns: (Il cane è sulle camicie)
Sullo - Used for singular nouns that begin with a "z" sound, or with a "s + consonant" (La formica è sullo zucchero)
Sugli - Same as "sullo", except this one is plural and also used for masculine words that start with a vowel. (L'acqua è sugli uomini)
Sull' - Used for any singular word that starts with a vowel. (Il ragno è sull'acqua)
All of these mean: "On the."
You can also check out this website for the other prepositions too!
Hope that helped!
Excellent illustration, it enabled me to see still more similarities to French apparent when you listen, but often obscured by the spelling and I still have the ghost of a memory of school French. If you observe closely you can find close connections between languages.
Di = of = just like de in French Su = on = just like sur in French
I think a for at is still common to both languages, not sure and of course in is blatantly common to English and Italian.
It is a good step to being able to combine them with the various forms of the, which I must look up. I can appreciate though that they are just there to make it possible to join up the words which feature inconvenient consonants or vowels at the beginning (in the word following)
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I have a feeling that Duo was just trying to teach us the word "sullo" and didn't have many vocab words that started with a "z" or "s+consonant" to choose from yet.
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You spill sugar on the table. The ant comes, and now the ant is on the sugar. There you have it. A situation in english where one would say the ant is on the sugar. Sugar does not always exist in a bowl.
No, the ant would still be "In" the sugar, in the sense that it is "among the grains of sugar". But since sugar is an uncountable noun, it is more correct to say "in" in English, even in a situation where the sugar is spilled on a table, etc. The only possible situation where an aunt would be "on" the sugar is like someone else mentioned, if it was a sugar cube. Is there not a different word for sugar cube (a countable noun) vs. sugar (an uncountable noun) in Italian as there is in English?
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again (like in the previous sentence) 'the new" world translation says "on" instead of "on the", so perhaps it is worth to give learners the correct hint
You must be new awlazel, or kidding, Duo is still in the stone age of English BRT translation, has not jet entered the UK translation, forget American English ( Internet English), World translation will hopefully be the next step. Than my dear friends we will have to pay big times, than they also wake up to have "native audio speakers, so grin and smile just call blunders Duodingo, and go on with the next chapter, but write it down to answer Dudingo next time around. Duo is still the best for learning languages free of charge my friends love it, got soooo many hooked on it.
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I don't think a native English speaker would say "on the sugar" for an ant walking across the sugar bowl, or even posing on it. We would say the ant "is in the sugar". Given the relative size of an ant's legs and the grains of sugar, it really is IN the sugar, not just "on" it.
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Can someone please explain why I was marked off, when I wrote EXACTLY what they say is the correct answer? /Users/susanpayer/Desktop/Screen Shot 2021-03-12 at 7.40.24 PM.png