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- "Their bear is hungry."
"Their bear is hungry."
Translation:Il loro orso ha fame.
72 Comments
The interesting thing here is that in italian (as well as in spanish) hunger is not something to be but rather something to have...
Not at all. It has the same meaning. Let's say that: "Ho fame." means LITERALLY "I have hunger." And "Sono affamato." means "I am hungry." However, "Ho fame." is more common than "Sono affamato". :)
In Portuguese, French, German and allot of other languages too, tbh English is prob one of the few that doesnt accept this form
Yes, German has both expressions. And there also is a verb for it: "hungern" (to hunger)
it's the infinitive. so it would be "wir hungern" and "sie hungern", but it's also the basic form of the verb and you can use it for any person and tense. "ich hungere", "du hungerst"... It doesn't mean exactly the same as "Ich habe Hunger"/"Ich bin hungrig" (which both mean "I'm hungry"). "hungern" is something quite serious and lasting usually, more like "to be famished" or "to famish"
I honestly had forgotten about it! My native language is spanish (I'm studying in english so I my skills don't fade), and normally I compare italian to spanish 'cause it's easier; but this time I got it completely wrong.
So to make loro possessive, we had il? So "Il loro" is "their," where "loro" is just "they?"
Not really, loro can be either: you can distinguish by the role in the sentence, as a personal pronoun is a noun while a possessive pronoun is an adjective. Possessives tend to go before the name they refer to, so they usually come after an article, if one is needed.
So 'the horse' is il cavallo, right? In English we would just say that it's 'their horse,' without adding 'the' in front of it again. It's not really important for us to do that because nouns don't really have (grammatical) genders. But since in Italian we have to specify that 'horse' is a masculine word, we stick 'the' into the possessive statement as well (or at least, that's my guess as to the reasoning behind this rule). 'Loro' means 'they' as a subject but it's also, apparently, a possessive adjective. So we just stick 'loro' in its assigned slot between the noun and the article (which helps to specify the gender of the noun). End result: 'il loro cavallo.'
(Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, I do NOT feel like an expert in Italian XD)
bah this one was tricky. i tried to do something with l'orso and loro, but didnt think i should break "l'orso" nice sentence anyway
One of the options to choose from was "Their bear has marmalade." I'm reminded of Padington.
1643
If it is "l'orso", why isn't it "lo loro orso"? Isn't "l'" just an abbreviation of "lo"?
Yes, it is; however the article doesn't depend on the word it refers to, but literally on the following letters, e.g. "la montagna" but "l'alta montagna", "lo stadio" but "il nuovo stadio". Most adjectives would go after the noun, but for those that go before, like the possessives, you have to consider this as well :)
I think its not correct because Lo is used for the nouns only begin with Z, Y, X, PS, PN, GN But we use l only for the nouns that begin with vouwels. So there is a big different between them
Nope: in Italian you almost always have to use a definite article before a possessive adjective. A common exception is for singular and unmodified family members, but that doesn't apply to "loro" in any case.
Reading the comments below, no one seemed to have noticed the fact that Duo finds it normal for a person to own a bear... Also, a hungry bear would eat its human.
Il suo orso was what I was looking for too, but since Suo wasnt an option, loro seemed the obvious choice. I didnt precede it with Il so I flunked it
"is hungry" should be "è fame", right? Then why did the answer gave ha fame?
I am learning Italian and am very new myself so could be wrong but from what I have learnt is you cannot be hungry in Italian you have to "have" hunger so the translation is not literal. We are translating English "is hungry" to Italian "have hunger" that's why it is "ha fame"
why is this sentence correct (Il loro orso ha fame ) I put ( Il loro orso è fame and it said I was wrong why?
Because in Italian you can't say "Lui è fame", but "Lui HA fame" ("He has hunger"). To use "è" you should write "Lui è affamato" ("affamato" = "hungry").
I find it strange that "loro orso" doesn't get contracted somehow. Italians seem so fond of shortening words.
Orso starts with a vowel and ends with a vowel so should (the) =l' not il
Because, that's the way they form sentences. Remember, you are learning one of the oldest languages, which is latin based. They say things backwards sometimes as well. Don't try and match the words exactly to English. Good idea, look into the structure of Italian sentences, it may help. ie: "John's book" would be "the book of John" Il libro di John.
Cant their also imply singular? Jim's bear is hungry: talking about Jim to someone else, their bear is hungry. Why isnt il suo orso ha fame accepted?
It tells which level a person has reached with a certain language.
