"What do the children read?"
Translation:Cosa leggono i ragazzi?
94 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
A lot of European languages invert the subject and verb to ask a question, as well as bring the question word into the subject. English does, too, although we frequently use an auxiliary verb.
I am here.
Where am I?
The children (do) read a book.
What do the children read?
It's the same thing in Italian:
I ragazzi leggono un libro.
Cosa leggono i ragazzi?
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I'm confused. When should I use "Cosa" and when should I use "Che"? The two correct answers it showed me were "i ragazzi che leggono" and "Cosa leggono i ragazzi". What's the difference?
I now know that "Cosa i ragazzi leggono?" isn't accepted, merely because I tried it and got my hand slapped; never mind that the last time I read the tips for questions, they said that questions tend to be indicated more by intonation and punctuation (and of course by interrogative words) than by reordering of words. It's all right with me that I lost a mere point, learning the lesson the hard way, but I can just imagine the resentment of people who are penalized by the "hearts system" when testing what they've read.
Yes, but previously we had "le gatte" as the only possible answer in a context where nothing suggested the cats were female. What gives? Shouldn't consistency be important?
As a learner of both French and Italian, I suggest to the Italian developers to take a look at how inclusive, precise, and consistent the French developers are. They leave nothing to chance or the learners' ability to guess. I never have these problems with the French course.
The French course has many volunteer contributors AND paid staff. The Italian course has maybe 3 volunteer contributors. A course becomes "consistent" through user error reports and contributors approving those error reports. I think our Italian contributors are doing the best they can with their limited numbers.
Thank you for clarifying the logistical aspect. I didn't know the French course had paid staff (it shows). As a volunteer who enjoys helping others, I am grateful for the time people donate. So, I'll say "thank you" to the Italian contributors and I'll continue to flag inconsistencies to help make the course better.
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Why do we lose hearts for small typos. Surely at this stage it is the grammar that is important. My typo was leaving out a 'g' in leggono.
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This word order is similar to the one in German:
"Was lesen die Kinder?" Was = what lesen = to read die Kinder = the children German does not use auxiliary verbs (or Hilfsverben).
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This is definitely a glitch in the system, I provided the correct answer "Cosa legonno i ragazzi" and the system marked it as incorrect while suggesting that the correct answer is "Cosa legonno i ragazzi" which is the same to what I provided. Does anyone look to adress these?
The noun "cosa" meaning "thing" changes to "cose" for the plural "things", but "cosa" as a pronoun meaning "what" does not change forms. Here we're asking "what do the children read?", so we know it has to be "cosa".
(Dictionary: https://www.wordreference.com/iten/cosa)