"I know nothing about women."
Translation:Non so niente di donne.
50 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
1481
"delle" is kind of a contraction of "of + the" so it adds the definite article, which is acceptable. I think it does, however, change the meaning slightly. "I know nothing about THE women" or "of the women" might be taken to mean a specific group of women rather than women in general. That is my understanding, but full disclaimer, I'm a beginner, as well.
998
Le donne also means women in general. Maybe you know the famous aria from "Rigoletto", "La donna è mobile". Here obviously women in general are meant. In general, you often use the article in Italian when you refer to things in general.
2066
Four years late, so I'm guessing you've figured this out by now, but I believe that "circa" and "quasi" mean "about" in the sense of "approximately": "It's about a five mile walk". (Circa actually has this same meaning in English, as well, as does quasi- as a prefix.)
So while those are translations for "about", they're not quite right in this case where "about" means "relating to".
"Io non conosco di donne"? What's the difference between know and know again?
This is a difference that many European languages have, including German (kennen vs können) and Dutch, French (savoir vs connaître) and also Italian. Conosco mostly means "to be acquainted with, to have met" and in general is used for people. You use it for "know" in the sense "do you know that girl over there?" or "I don't know you". Also see this discussion on Duo: https://www.duolingo.com/comment/2088826
It's similar to Spanish. "Conoscere" is for intimate knowledge, "sapere" is for facts and figures.
If you know someone, it's "conoscere". If you know about someone, it's "sapere".
https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/2088826/Differentiating-between-sapere-and-conoscere
First, "conostro" is not a word in Italian. You're thinking of "conosco".
https://www.italian-verbs.com/italian-verbs/conjugation.php?parola=conoscere
Second, that's the wrong verb. You want "so".
https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/2088826/Differentiating-between-sapere-and-conoscere
https://www.italian-verbs.com/italian-verbs/conjugation.php?parola=sapere
Third, you're missing half of the negation. It needs to be "non so niente di donne". It's called negative concord and it's somewhat similar to adjective agreement.