"Manca un coltello in cucina."
Translation:A knife is missing in the kitchen.
99 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
why not "he left a knife in the kitchen". The first definition of Manca with the mouse-over is "he, she, it, LEFT"
As far as I can tell, it goes like this. Mancare means "to be left" not "to leave".
Its like piaccere (to like). But actually, piaccere doesn't mean "to like" but instead "to be pleasing". So, in a direct translation, "A lei piaccono gli animale" literally means "The animals are pleasing to her" not "She likes the animals"
So, with mancare, "Manca un coltello in cucina" doesn't mean "(he, she, it) LEFT a knife in the kitchen", but instead "A knife is left in the kitchen" which would make more sense to say "A knife is missing in the kitchen".
It seems to me, based on the previous piacere and mancare examples that the sentence meaning would be "The kitchen is missing a knife."
Hmm those last 2 translations are not the same. One is saying someone left behind a knife as they left the kitchen, whilst the other translation implies someone is searching for a knife in the kitchen. Care to explain?
Sure.
There really aren't perfect word-to-word translations, especially with these kinds of verbs. I was just trying to explain how one got from "(he/she/it) left" to "it is missing." The actual way of saying "A knife is being left in the kitchen" would be "Qualcuno sta lasciando un coltello in cucina," or 'Someone is leaving a knife in the kitchen," which is more correct in modern-day talk. If you were to go to someone and say "A knife is left in the kitchen," they'll have no clue what you're talking about.
Again, I was just trying to show how to get from "mancare" to "is missing." Neither of the sentences imply anything - they're just sentences with no context.
I can explain. Here, you can think of "manca" as being "left out," as if the knife were "left out of the kitchen," i.e. missing. Mancare means "to be lacking" or "to be missing." Note too that in Italian, "missing" works differently from English. Instead of saying "You miss me" (when we mean "you miss me'), we say "I am missing to you" ("(io) ti manco" or "io manco a te"). "You are missing a knife" is ""ti manca un coltello." (Note that in English, "you" is the sentence's subject, but not in Italian.) Hope this helps.
I find the most most helpful definition of mancare is " to be lacking". with that translation, its easier to figure out what is meant
As I could find out, "manca" only means "left" for "left hand" and is used only in the expression "a destra e a manca", which means ~ "everywhere".
The hints may be wrong.
Manca definition is, missing, is missing, is lacking, it lacks, don't have, without, etc.
You are using the wrong subject. Its not he that is missing but the knife. Plus that would mean we could say she or it misses a knife in the kitchen, which also are both incorrect
Amici Italiani: What does this MEAN? Did someone STEAL or LOSE one of our knives? In that case, we would say "A knife is missing FROM the kitchen". Or is the meaning that we don't have ANY knives at ALL and never did? In that case, we would say (although this would be a rather formal and stiff sentence): "The kitchen lacks a knife".
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I am italian. When we say manca un...... We want to say that in general there are 10 and today are only 9
I think it means what it says it means: "a knife is missing in the kitchen". Presumably there were a bunch of knives in the kitchen when one of them went missing. (From) where did it go missing? It went missing from/in the kitchen.
Here's a discussion about missing from/in where everyone seems to agree that both forms are acceptable: http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=2033626
I would be very worried if a knife is missing in the kitchen, call 911, there's a killer in the house
Why does the sentence seem like it is out of order? Shouldn't the verb be after the noun and turn out like "Un cotello manca in cucina." or if you want to go more ahead, 'Un cotello sta mancando in cucina."
Yea - it annoyed me as well - this made me translate it as "he leaves a knife ...".
Now with the explanations, and the correct translation it would seam that because it's a passive voice in English - it's like "A knife is missing ...", so it's not the direct translation, but the next best thing. The way I could understand it is
"Manca un coltello" in this case means that SOMEONE is missing a knife, an unspecified 3rd party. So the passive voice in English fits for this meaning, as it doesn't specify WHO is missing a knife. Any translation as "he/she misses" would be incorrect than.
But there's been tons of sentences with just that - 3rd person, where he/she could be picked at random, and were correct. I guess this could be some special case. On one hand - annoying as hell, but on the other - I guess we have to learn even those annoying special cases :)
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It seems that mancare is similar to piacere so he misses a knife is: a lui manca un coltello, literally: a knife is missing to him.
There is a very good explanation on how to use Mancare & Piacere at: http://italian.about.com/od/verbs/a/italian-verb-piacere.htm
I'm fairly certain that it's one of the idiomatic location phrases that does not require the article.
I think it was because Mustard stole it and murdered Peacock in the living room!
My native tongue is Spanish. Since i started to use "Manca(Mancare)" the same way we use "Falta" this word has been so easy now. Same with "Piace(Piacere)" with "Placer".
Can I ask, is it just me or does "in" constantly sound like "ina" with the synthetic voice? I just listened to it slow and it still sounds like it's saying "inna" which is throwing me off a lot. I usually understand this voice a LOT better but little things like this are causing a lot of errors :P
Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think I learned "manca" yet (I've learned up to verb present tense 2 and adverbs). I searched in my words list and couldn't find it. This was in my strengthen skills pool, but do we learn this in a later lesson or is the word "coltello" I am trying to strengthen?
"Piacere" was simple; my current feeling about "mancare" is: "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!"
Shouldn't "there isn't a knife in the kitchen" be accepted here? I know another way of saying that is non c'è un coltello in cucina, but isn't "manca un coltello in cucina" another way of saying that? Or does mancare specifically imply something that was once there and is now missing?
In my opinion the intended meaning is that there were a certain number of knives in the kitchen, and now there is one less. Therefore: One knife is missing.
I think that the last alternative you suggested is the correct one.
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Agreed. "There isn't a knife in the kitchen" means, in English, that there are no knives in the kitchen at all.
"A knife is missing" says that one knife that should be in the kitchen is not there now.
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Well, a kitchen knife is a type of knife. The kitchen is where it's intended to be used, but that isn't necessarily where it is.
While I'm not certain if this is true for Italian, in German we would also use this construction if we sat down for a meal and realized there weren't enough knives for everybody. So, even though that missing knife wasn't there to begin with, it 'is missed/missing/being missed'. (Uns fehlt ein Messer - a knife is missing/being missed by us)
To help me please. "Manca un coltello" means "the knife is missing"? Or as I thought, "he/she/it is missing a knife"? I can't see the signal here that makes me think the knife is the subject.
mancare works like piacere, so the subject is the knife
http://italian.about.com/od/verbs/a/italian-verb-piacere.htm
Interestingly, Google Translate says this wording means "Missing a knife in the kitchen" where as "Un coltello manca in cucina" comes up as "A knife is missing in the kitchen." Is it both? Either? Regional?
It's OK! We can all relax! I've found the knife and put it back in the kitchen! ;)
Sad! It did not accept "A knife is missing in the kitchen" and instead required "there is one knife missing in the kitchen." Does anyone know if this is correctly translated or if this is a bug?
I wrote "The knife is missing in the kitchen" and was corrected to "One knife is missing in the kitchen." Why is "manca" indefinite: "one" vs. definite "the"?
"A knife is missing in the kitchen." "He does not miss me." "She does not miss me."
I am really started to not like this word 'miss'. It makes no sense to me, how does it translate? I know the question has probably been asked like a hundred times but still, I'm confused.
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A knife is missing in the kitchen because it was used for murder in the bedroom. Makes perfect sense.
i put "a knife is missing in the kitchen ', it was marked wrong the correct solution was "A knife is missing in the kitchen" ?????
Normal idiomatic English would be "A knife is missing from the kitchen." DL continues to madden native speakers with overly literal translations.
- 990
So even though we didn't learn this yet and I had to find it on another site, if we want to say that He is missing one of his knives, we'd use GLI in place of LUI. It certainly kills your progress and learning when you hover your mouse over Manca, and it says "He misses" Then you choose "he misses" (not because you make it up, but because DL itself tells you it's the answer!), and it's wrong.
I'm sure he says "manco"! That would surely be perfectly correct too, just having the meaning "I lack a knife in the kitchen"
I dont understand the sentence structure of " manca un coltello in cucina.. "missing a knife from the kitchen"
Can you explain why? If "manca" means "missing" then it looks correct to me. What does "past participle" have to do with it?
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Yes, "è" is the main verb. You can't have "mancare" in the indicative here because it's secondary here. "Io manco" but "io è mancato."
What about "un coltello manca dalla cucina"? Is dropping the è fixing it?
How come its "in cucina" and not "nel cucina" of the translation includes "the"?
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@Jacob191436
Here, the definite article is implied (in is normally used when speaking about rooms of your own house or relatives' rooms, friends' rooms, even though the articulated in is not grammatically incorrect).
For more on "in cucina vs nella cucina", read the discussion in the following link:
Both Emy__3 and CivisRomanus who've commented there, are very helpful Italian native speakers.
