"She has red pants."
Translation:Lei ha i pantaloni rossi.
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Why not "i pantaloni rossi' here? I just can't seem to get to grips with when an article must be included, cannot be included, or is optional. It all seems so arbitrary.
"Lei ha i pantaloni rossi" would be "she has THE red pants", showing that they are talking about a specific aforementioned pair of pants. Not including the article shows that this girl has red pants, but they're not talking about a specific pair of red pants. In english the difference is apparent as well.
She has the red pants -indicates specific pants
She has red pants -much more general hope it helps.
That would make sense HOWEVER the sentence is "She has red pants" i.e. unspecific(!) and the translation is "Lei ha i pantaloni rossi" specific!!! When is it that Italians use a specific article while there's non in English?
2016
To me, adding the article in Italian, but not English, only makes sense if we are talking about the trousers she is currently wearing. Because you also translate "she has long hair" as "ha i capelli lunghi". So I assume in such cases, Italians prefer to use the specific form even if English doesn't.
I am wondering about the same thing; Italians use the article more often than not.
Adjectives agree in number and gender with the noun they modify. Rossa is feminine singular; pantaloni is masculine plural
Why does it need to be "I pantaloni rossi"?" Doesn't that make it "the red pants?"
I don't think the definite article should be required but perhaps one day we'll get a grammatical explanation and it'll be adjusted
