"It is the national book week."
Translation:È la settimana nazionale del libro.
45 Comments
The question is where are the clauses. Is it "the [(national book) week]" or "the [national (book week)]"? What is considered to be "national"? If it's the book, shouldn't "nazionale" be pushed to the end of the sentence?
Yeaah, I also thought that it was a week for national book.. So i wrote la settimana del libro nazionale and also got wrong..
That would be a holiday celebrating the 'national book'. It makes far more sense to have a national holiday celebrating the book.
That wouldn't be a problem in English. If it were the book that is national (and I'm having difficulty trying to imagine such a thing), it would be "It is the week of the national book." But usually in a simple sentence like this, it is the week that is national, book being another descriptor in this case.
The problem with this sentence is that a week can't be national. Events, books, etc. can. Thus, the logic here, in my mind, fails. However, very often what is logic to us does not necessarily match the nuances of another culture, or other cultural perceptions. In that case, those perceptions may actually be national.
Sorry, but that's your own problem, Nadia, and not of the languages'. Both in Italian and in English the idea and phrase of a national week work perfectly fine.
99
yep I totally agree my answer was based on the same thing, it should be accepted: È la settimana del libro nazionale
- 118
@Mazzorano
That is indeed the question.
Is it a holiday celebrating Italian books,
(as opposed to translated or foreign language books)
or is it a national holiday for all books?
Both are reasonable interpretations that exist in other countries:
The Hebrew book week = שבוע הספר העיברי
later to be expanded to "שבוע הספר" becoming National week of all books.
(I see you take Hebrew. Hence the example.)
This being Italy, a country well known for protecting local products,
the interpretation of {(national book) week} makes sense,
even if the person who composed this exercise meant national week of books.
I am a native English speaker. We would not use"the" here. "It is National Book Week" The words should also be capitalized..
I disagree. You could use either. Capitalising and removing "the" means you are naming the day, while here it is explaining what the day is.
The Italian translation helps with this, because it would more literally be translated as "the national week of books" (well "book", as I discovered after failing the question lol). You cannot remove the word "the" here.
Sorry, Elena, but that's just wrong. What you're explaining is what would happen if this were the official or actual name of the event, but as Finkie said, it isn't, and that's correct English too. There are a vast number of events where "national" might make it sound official, but it is not their name, so it's incorrect to capitalize it, and "national" is simply a synonym of "nationwide".
In Australia, the schools started it and they celebrate a national book week every year. Now many libraries etc to do this. Thats how I took it and of course got it completely wrong! I guess many nations do the same
I wrote "dei libri"... I suppose it would be some national week to promote reading and books in general whereas the "correct" answer sounds like it's about one particular book to me.
Could a native italian speaker please say whether "la settimana nazionale di libri" would be correct / acceptable? dei libri would mean "of the books" and I am trying to say "of books (in general)"
If it's a compound adjective modifying the noun you would need a hyphen. It really could be two different translations. Like a five-fingered glove for example
- 432
Would someone please explain why, on the "You are wrong" response, the translation is given as "E la settimana nazionale dei libri" and yet on this page the translation is given as "E la settimana nazionale del libro". The first gives the plural answer, this one gives the singular answer. As someone trying hard to learn Italian, this inconsistency (without any explanation) is confusing and frustrating. I can accept that both translations are correct, but could someone explain why ?
I really hate this sentence. I get it, it's correct, but the word order and the "del", I just don't get it, and it makes me crazy.
Thanks for letting me vent. :)
"del libro". di il libro. di+il=del. It's called an articluated preposition, because you have to mix articles and prepositions in Italian (mostly).
Surely the use of a composite preposition in "Del Libro" suggests a specific book, (maybe the Good Book?) rather than a general reading initiative.
Then again I can see a situation in Italy where everyone reads the national book, the Ddivine Comedy, once a week every year.
Maybe - amount of book reading in Italy is pretty low I think. And bookshops are quite expensive.
No, it does not suggest a specific book, similar to English. In this phrase, book/libro has the meaning of a concept, «institution» if you like.
del = de + il. dello = de + lo.
So it is 'settimana del libro' but 'dello squalo'.
This challenge should have been posed only once or twice by DL. Otherwise, this sentence is not very helpful to learning Italian.
Please please please, enough with this challenge. Getting it right, on most occasions, does not improve my Italian learning experience. Fai bravo, DL.
i feel this is far too confusing for this stage in duolingo the word order is open to interpretation
- 298
some sayings in Italian seem backwards and not accurate the way it is spoken in English ... it is the week national of the book ....sounds awkward and very wrong in English ... to me it is amazing Italians understand each other at all because sometimes it flows exactly like English and other times like this it seems backwards
No offence meant, but is it such a wonder that different languages have different grammar rules rather than just being word for word translations? It's perfectly logical, you're just not used to it yet.
For the clause "[national (book week)]," as in 'national week of book,' there should be a comma; "national, book week." That way we would know that the word national is describing the week and not the book.
No, that is totally incorrect. In no circumstance can you place a comma there.
