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- Topic: Italian >
- "Noi scriviamo, voi scrivete."
127 Comments
English grammar is so easy that I feel uncomfortable when people have problems remembering "I write,you write,he writeS,we write,you write, they write".... (talked about this with my British friend, no offence/offense to English native speakers :-) )
LOL, definitely... I'm an English teacher for Spanish native speakers, and that's one of the first things I make them realize... There are no conjugations in English! :D
I am glad that we don't have to really conjugate anything... But other languages have an EXTREME amount of conjugations. This is why i struggle with languages like Spanish or Portugese.
If it were your native language, you wouldn't think twice about the conjugations. But it's not some impenetrable mystery. Most of the verbs are regular and follow a simple pattern. Learn the pattern and you can conjugate all of the regular verbs.
This is a basic chart for the regular Italian present tense verbs. All you do is remove the infinitive suffix (-are, -ere, -ire) and add on the appropriate person suffix. The hardest part is knowing whether an -ire verb is type 1 or type 2, but apparently there are not very many type 2 -ire verbs, so you just have to memorize them as you come across them.
Great point, people do blow off native conjugations as if it were nothing... Simply tenses
Correct, it seems easy with just the 1st person singular to change - but not so easy without a 'conditional' tense, then you have to chose between 'will, would, can, could, shall, should, may, might, would have, should have, could have, might have, must have, won't, shan't, can't, mightn't, mustn't, haven't got to, don't have to, ought to, oughtn't...........and many others all with subtle differences, plus over 2000 phrasal verbs. English is very easy in the beginning, but as you progress in order to become fully competent in the language is very complicated as there are hardly any grammar rules to guide you, you just have to learn by ear and get a feel for what is right. You have a VERY impressive array of language skills, you obviously have a talent for languages, I wish I could say the same for me.
I agree with you. And actually learning a language starts to become truly interesting once you get to the complicated part of it. When you are already capable of expressing yourself in a plain way and you start to pay attention to the minor details that make your speech and writing more accurate, colourful and refined.
I'm English and I found it difficult at first to remember the different words. But I've been remembering them from the first few lessons. As in 'I am - Io sono - Io bevo/leggo/scrivo'. 'We are - Noi siamo - noi beviamo/abitiamo/parliamo' etc, it was a little confusing at first but It's helping to remember like this. I've only been learning Italian for just over a week but getting there :)
Italian is pretty regular. Here's a link to a conjugation chart that should clear things up a bit:
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For me, so far, "possessions" has been my most difficult section of the lessons. I have a super hard time remembering when it's "la mia", "i miei", "il mio", "i vostri", "vostre", "il vostro", "il nostro", "i nostri", "le nostre", "la nostra", "la sua", "il suo", le sue". It helps when the earlier lessons appear "broken" and I have to repair them. It reinforces what I've learned and helps me understand better each time. Those possession words though, man oh man!
Here's something on the possessives that should help you:
https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/306864?comment_id=34707869
You think that because present tense conjugation in English is easy all English grammar is easy?! Give me a break. That's an incredibly ignorant thing to say.
And you haven't even talked about the past. Apart from some irregular verbs (every language has some), it's always -ed. And the future... even easier... gosh you're all so lazy! :P
That may be true, but we have a butt ton of irregular verbs to make up for it.
In Polish language write = pisać piszę, piszesz, pisze, piszemy, piszecie, piszą :)
the grammar is different in french, italien, spanish....there is just english grammar that is so easy !
English grammar is only easy if you're a native English speaker. French grammar is easy if you're a native French speaker and Italian grammar is easy if you're a native Italian speaker. It's always going to be a challenge if it's not your native language.
No i am french native speaker and i am just in high school but i think english is easier than spanish or italien but this is just my opinion :-)
Spanish grammar is very challenging (I'm a Spanish native speaker). However Spanish pronunciation is easier than grammar.
If you think spanish is hard. Try Portuguese!! Guaranteed free ticket to hell. I'm a native Brazilian, believe me.
I hope the Hungarian lessons will be ready soon. I'm looking forward to the desperate comments of the confused people who dare to take those lessons. :)
Oh! You think that, choosing between Spanish, Italian, or English, English grammar is easier than the other two. That's an interesting perspective. :-)
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Being a Portuguese native speaker, I think Spanish is the easiest, then Italian, then French (because all these 4 languages derived from Latin). Given time, English became (kind of) easy because we can access it easily through many media.
Regular English grammer actually /is/ fairly simple once you've learnt it. The problem comes with with the mountainous pile of seemingly random exceptions and irregulars.
There are some exceptions, I am an english native speaker who has been learning french his whole life, this makes latin-based languages such as italian or spanish easier. While my english speaking self makes germanic-based languages such as german or dutch easier.
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Yes, for the Russian-speaking (for me) English grammar can also seem daunting (especially articles), while for the Italian-speaking contrary, they seem easy.
Hanna99999, How can English articles be daunting while Italian articles seem easy, since English has only one definite article and Italian has six?
English does not distinguish between you, singular and you, plural. Duolingo occasionally puts "you all" simply as a way of emphasizing that it's the plural "you."
I wrote this but apparently it is seen as wrong, even though it is correct.
Why isnt it noi scriviamo, tu scrivi? And when is voi used as you and when as "you all"?
Sanika looking at the chart a few steps up this discussion provided by Rae.F this is what I understand; ..noi (we - us) - scriviamo (write) ..tu (you - 1 person) scrivi (write) ..voi (you - more than 1 person) scrivo (I write) - example; scrivo a tutti voi (I write to you all) ..voi (you - more than 1 person) scrivete (write) - example; tutti voi scrivete a me (you all write to me) not sure if that is correct but that is how it makes me understand. if I am wrong please feel free anyone to correct me
Can someone please write to me all the conjugations to reading and writing verbs in Italian,i find it a bit hard to gather them on Duolingo.
You may have to copy and paste link. I tried clicking and it takes you to a Spanish lesson. Sorry.
This is the same link, but easier to click.
EDIT: For some reason, the link stopped working right. I'm trying to fix it, but I don't know why it's breaking. When you do get to the link, just click on the sidebar under "Italian" where it says "Italian verbs".
According to the rules of English, just "you" is fine.
Duolingo writes "you all" when it wants to restrict "you" to plural.
Note that the header for this page itself reads "Translation: We write, you write." ...
Still though, it's ambiguous in English. "You" can be singular or plural.
...I just cannot seem to keep it all in my head..he writes , she writes , I write etc etc in Italian..in English we have one word for write no matter who is writing..does anyone have any tips to help my memory..?
In Italian, all verbs are conjugated uniquely to who is doing it. Most verbs are regular, so you can just follow a conjugation chart based on whether the infinitive ends in -are, -ere, or -ire.
http://italian.about.com/library/fare/blverbs01.htm
The trick is knowing when to use which conjugation for -ire verbs.
....looking at the chart a few steps up this discussion provided by you Rae.F... this is what I understand; ..noi (we - us) - scriviamo (write) ..tu (you - 1 person) scrivi (write) ..voi (you - more than 1 person) scrivo (I write) - example; scrivo a tutti voi (I write to you all) ..voi (you - more than 1 person) scrivete (write) - example; tutti voi scrivete a me (you all write to me) not sure if that is correct but that is how it makes me understand. if I am wrong please feel free to correct me..all help gratefully received..
There is no reason to say "tutti voi" because "voi" is already the plural "you". The only reason we say "you all" in English is because we have one "you" that covers both singular and plural, and so "you all" makes it clear we mean the plural.
tu is the singular "you"
voi is the plural "you"
The verb must conjugate appropriately.
This italian learning is hurting tounggeeee but the language is so beautiful ❤❤❤
Go into your settings https://www.duolingo.com/settings/account and turn off Microphone and Speaker. You might have to do this separately on the mobile app.
Yes, exactly.
je = yo = I
tu = tu = you (sg)
il = lui = he
elle = lei = she
nous = noi = we
vous = voi = you (pl)
ils = loro = they
elles = loro = they
The main difference between "vous" and "voi" is that "vous" can be the singular formal in French. In Italian, the singular formal is "Lei" and the plural formal is "Loro" with capital letters.
Anyone else think that the way she said "noi" sounds like a Northern Irishmen saying "No"?
so, if scriviamo is the conjugaation of 'we' i wonder, what is the infinitive form of scriviamo?
Hey can some one help me. I dont understand this one. I think scrivete was writes, scriveti was write Scriviamo ?? (ing)
Italian conjugates verbs more thoroughly than English does.
I write = io scrivo
you (s) write = tu scrivi
he/she writes = lui/lei scrive
we write = noi scriviamo
you (pl) write = voi scrivete
they write = loro scrivono
All regular verbs follow a pattern like this. There's more discussion in the rest of the comments here.
I thought it said lui not noi but I put it in slow mo so I could hear better but yet I still misunderstood. But it is Okay because you learn from mistakes.
I can't remember the differences between all the different variations of the same word. Example: Write - scrive, scriviamo, scrivo, etc.
http://italian.about.com/library/fare/blverbs01.htm
That should help. The infinitive of "to write" in Italian is "scrivere" and so you'd follow the "-ere" conjugation:
SCRIVERE
(io) scriv-o
(tu) scriv-i
(lui) scriv-e
(noi) scriv-iamo
(voi) scriv-ete
(loro) scriv-ono
Hi thanks for the scrivere thing, bit confused with (Tu) and (Voi) both mean 'you' is this correct ?
looking at the chart in this discussion provided by Rae.F this is what I understand; ..noi (we - us) - scriviamo (write) ..tu (you - 1 person) scrivi (write) ..voi (you - more than 1 person) scrivo (I write) - example; scrivo a tutti voi (I write to you all) ..voi (you - more than 1 person) scrivete (write) - example; tutti voi scrivete a me (you all write to me) not sure if that is correct but that is how it makes me understand. if I am wrong please feel free anyone to correct me; http://dante-learning.com/eng/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/verbi-regolari-presente-indicativo.jpg
Yeah .. and I have a problems too ..
That I actually can't discriminate the difference between "scrivete" and "scriviamo" and another words else
I don't know when I use those :/
Any body can help me? :/
The infinitive is scrivere: http://www.italian-verbs.com/italian-verbs/conjugation.php?parola=scrivere
io scrive = I write
tu scrivi = you write (singular)
lui/lei scrive = he/she writes
noi scriviamo = we write
voi scrivete = you write (plural)
loro scrivono = they write
voi means you in the plural form tu means you in the singular form to make the difference I hope this help you.
There are 3-4 types of regular verbs in Italian. The infinitive will end with -ARE, -ERE, or -IRE. If it's a regular verb, then all you do is remove the infinitive ending and replace it with the appropriate present tense ending for the subject.
http://i.imgur.com/pDIGQXp.jpg
In this lesson, we're conjugating SCRIVERE. It's a regular verb with the -ERE ending, so we conjugate it in the present tense like this:
io scriv-o
tu scriv-i
lui/lei scriv-e
noi scriv-iamo
voi scriv-ete
loro scriv-ono
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Is Italian like Spanish which uses the verb forms without the subject pronouns sometimes? What is the rule on that?
The basic rule, in Italian as in Spanish, is that if the subject is obvious from context, you can drop it.
I wrote 'you all' instead of just 'you' to show it was plural but i still got it wrong. Whyy
I'm not sure. But it's not necessary to emphasize the plural in English. Simply "you write" is accepted.
A mnemonic I found useful for remembering pronouns is: "there is no I in we" > no i > noi > we
Standard English only has one "you" to cover all the bases. Duolingo only uses "you all" when it wants to force the plural meaning.
That sounds like a bug.
https://support.duolingo.com/hc/en-us/articles/204728264-How-do-I-report-a-bug-
English only has one "you" that covers both the singular and the plural. Sometimes we say "you all" when we want to be clear we mean the plural.
Italian has "tu" for the singular only and "voi" for the plural only. They have their own possessives and verb forms.
You can read the other comments on this page for more information.
They come from the same place as the Spanish "nosotros" and "vosotros" and mean the same thing:
nosotros = noi = we
vosotros = voi = y'all
what is the different between "scriviomo" and "scriviamo"....i'm a little bit confuse
I don't understand the rule why is the verb different : Noi scriviamo but its Voi scrivete
Just like in English whee we have "I am" and "he is", except the verb conjugation is more robust and everyone has their own verb form.
