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- Topic: Italian >
- "Noi non mangiamo caramelle."
74 Comments
Articles are used pretty often in Italian, so why doesn't this sentence use 'le caramelle'?
I'm not sure if this also holds for Italian, but in Spanish (I'm a native speaker) I would use the article if there were a certain amount of known candy I'm not eating, and I wouldn't use the article if I were saying I don't eat candy at all or I don't use to eat candy.
^I second that. Also a native Spanish speaker. Spanish and Italian are very similar (if not identical) in sentence structure.
i third (native speaker :)) in fact, if you know spanish, italian, french, or portugese it is easier to learn any of the other languages. they are also called the love languages.
Technically, they are called Romance languages, and nit because they express love, but because they derive from the Roman's latin. Roman- romance
Articles do not exsist in Russian.. makes everything just that much more difficult...
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This would be the same in English. So the question is how does one differentiate between the two scenarios in Italian?
Because you can't say we do not eat the sweets...it is we do not eat sweets.. So you remove 'le' which represents "the" and you gets a correct sentence.
Caramelle is more general. The sweets or le caramelle would refer to some specific sweets, for example in a box in the room. Same for coffee, meat etc
Candy is American usage. In English they would be "sweets". The first time I encountered "la caramella, le caramelle" I guessed the meaning as toffee (or caramel)
A 'lolly' in English is an ice cream on a stick, and an abreviation of lollipop.
I fully agree. This app should accept "sweets" and not say I'm wrong because I'm actually CORRECT saying sweets! (And not "candy!") After all, the language is ENGLISH!!
Yeah and it seems to change its mind on whether it'll allow "lollies" It should definitely accept other English spellings and words for general objects
In American English we don't say "We do not eat candies" but "We don't eat candy".
I didn't. I am an Australian citizen, born and "brung up" in Scotland. I had to stop calling them "sweeties"! I also had to stop saying "ice lolly" and change to "icy pole".
Thank you Birdfishy. The first time I heard the word " lolly " was in NZ where my daughter born in Ireland, lives. I even answer " not too shabby " when people ask me how I am. Ciao !
The word caramelle always refers to more than one sweet, but it can be confusing because this is something an English speaker would translate as either "candy" (mass noun) or "candies" (countable). The concept is simpler in Italian:
- do you like candy? ti piacciono le caramelle?
- do you like (the piece of candy/the candy/the sweet)? ti piace la caramella?
- this is my favorite (piece of candy/sweet/candy). questa è la mia caramella preferita.
- these are my favorite candies. queste sono le mie caramelle preferite.
Hope this makes sense :)
Yes and thank you reakly much. So la caramella is probably for a piece of candy and le caramelle is for lots of candies
As an American, every time it makes me write caramelle, I write carmel instead of candy.
"Candies" is American-English. We need an English-English option. We say "sweets."
I wrote "we are not eating candy" and it said I am wrong. What would be the reason for this? My understanding is that, for example, "mangiamo le torte" and "stiamo mangiando le torte" would mean the same thing (we are eating the cakes).
Apparently Duolingo listens. I answered with your exact answer and was correct.
Why do mangiamo and mangiano have different stresses? Mangiamo seems to have stress on the "a-mo" whereas mangiano has stress on the "man". Is there a rule to this?
'We do not eat sweets' should be accepted as a correct answer in Irish/UK English. 'candies' is an American English term.
This may be off topic, but will there be a lesson in tenses for Italian? This must be the 5th time I got snagged by do vs did.
By this point in the lessons, they assume you know or can infer what the words you've already studied mean. A masculine noun ends with "o" in the singular tense, and ends in "i" if it is plural. Likewise for the feminine "a" to "e".
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Duolingo gave "lollies" for caramelle seems a very strange translation.Can accept my "toffees" not acceptable-but better than "lollies"
This is a discrimination against Beitish English, where candies are sweets (if you put sweets, you get an incorrect answer). :-p
Like if you think this one was pretty straight forward. Edit: Thank you for 1 like <3
i don't understand when to use for instance le caramelle, i peace etc and when not. I keep guessing but cannot find any clue how te deal with it! please explain...
