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- "The turtle is certainly not …
"The turtle is certainly not ours."
Translation:La tartaruga non è certo nostra.
58 Comments
Is the Italian here correct?
It sounds as if it would translate "The turtle is not certainly ours" which is unnatural in English- or colloquially "It's not certain that the turtle is ours" which would carry a completely different meaning than "The turtle is certainly not ours".
I tried "La tartaruga certamente non e (w/accent) la nostra"...but the OTHER "turtle" was unhappy.
This website is great: you can search for examples of any phrase in Italian. If you search for "non è certo," you'll see they have lots of examples like this.
https://context.reverso.net/traduzione/italiano-inglese/non+%C3%A8+certo
Perdere peso non è certo semplice. Losing weight is certainly not an easy task.
1620
I wrote La tartaruga certo non è la nostra. which was not accepted (and reported 4 June 2018) - and which follows the adverb rule you state, BUT the "correct" answer Duo gave me was:
La tartaruga certamente non è la nostra. [I entered this sentence when it came around again at the end of the module, and Duo accepted it. That doesn't always happen. Sometimes, Duo doesn't accept it's own "correct" answers.]
Seems kind of wacky, at least to my thinking.
526
I think the thinking here is as follows:
• "nostra" is simply an adjective, marking that some object belongs to us
• When talking about a certain object that exists, you must put the article (la tartaruga, in this case), because you're basically saying "THE turtle that is ours". This will be the case most of the time you're talking about possession, but not always.
• In a case like this, whether or not you have the "la" depends on whether or not there IS a turtle that is ours! With the "la" there in this sentence, you're basically saying "The turtle is certainly not the one that is ours", i.e. "We have a turtle, but it's definitely not that one!" Without the "la" there, you're just saying that one doesn't belong to us, regardless of whether or not we have one. :)
I hope that makes sense!
460
I'm getting this in a drop-down word selection. "...certo non è nostra" has been deemed incorrect twice now. Why would "certo nostra" be correct syntax? Lots of us are confused. Can someone help?
308
davvero = really; certamente = certainly; these two words are similar, and one might even say synonyms in the right context. But they are two different words. Can they be used interchangeably? Probably, in many instances. But DL is trying to teach you different words, so davvero may not be acceptable in this instance.
131
I wrote La tataruga certo non è la nostra (because I stupidly didn't recall certamente at the moment). But why is the option "La tartaruga non è certo nostra" more correct?
458
"La tartaruga certo non è la nostra" -- incorrect
"La tartaruga certamente non è la nostra" -- correct
"La tartaruga non è certo nostra" -- correct
Yes, it doesn't really seem to follow.
But wouldn't the meaning change depending on the placement? If you say "La tartaruga non è certi la nostra" the sentence indicates that you couldn't rule out that it is ours (The turtle could be ours), but to write "the turtle is certainly not ours" it should be "La tartaruga certamente non è la nostra (100% sure that this is not ours!)
Why is 'la tartaruga non è certo la nostra' wrong? Someone mentioned that 'nostra' here is not a possessive pronoun but a possessive adjective (!!!), but possessive adjectives in English come before a noun (e.g., our turtle), is it different in Italian? The 'ours' in the 'not ours' in the exercise is definitely a possessive pronoun and not an adjective. So why is the article dropped in the use of the possessive pronoun here?
2454
Certo is an adjective (something that is... certain) Certamente is an adverb, modifying an adjective, or verb, or phrase = certainly