"I eat steak on Friday."
Translation:Mangio la bistecca venerdì.
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1252
This question is from like 4 years ago haha but in Italian the preposition is just not needed. We translate "Mangio la bistecca venerdì" into English as "I eat steak on Friday" because it sounds more natural than "I eat steak Friday".
If we wanted to say "I eat steak on Fridays", meaning every Friday, we still would not use a preposition but a definite article. "Il venerdì mangio la bistecca".
In Italian we just don't need to use prepositions before the days of the week. We do however use prepositions with months and seasons, but not the days of the week.
For more info about proper use of the days of the week: https://www.thoughtco.com/italian-vocabulary-days-of-the-week-4086512
For more info about proper use of months and seasons: https://www.thoughtco.com/italian-vocabulary-italian-calendar-months-4087628
525
Interestingly "I eat steak on Friday" would (at least in BE) generally be taken to imply that this happened every Friday (=> il venerdì) while if you use the present continuous, saying "I am eating steak on Friday", this could only mean this is going to happen next Friday (without any indication about what will happen on any other: => venerdì.
260
Thanks. Links v.helpful especially the second for the a / in debate on usage with months.
525
Prepositions are very much not optional. Where they need to be omitted, their omission is not optional either!
1745
'Su' is a very literal translation for 'on', meaning physically on. As you cannot be 'on top of Friday' it would not make sense to use 'su' here. The Italians instead prefer to use 'il' before weekdays in cases like this, or may even use no proposition/article at all
Since the English sentence did not limit my steak consumption to one steak, why is "la" needed to be correct. It didn't say " I eat the steak ..." Maybe I was really hungry that day and ate two steaks? Then it would it be " bistecce?" Since its not written in the plural why can't "Mangio bistecca" be okay. I want to eat my dang steak in peace!!!
"I eat steak on Friday" - where do you see any indication which article to use? Why is "una bistecca" marked as wrong and I am required to do it again just for the sake of putting "la" there? It's not studying Italian, it's memorising Duo whims (which, judging from DIscussions, no one cares to correct for years).
525
Caution: I am not a native speaker but this is my best understanding of this question.
Both English and Italian use the definite article to pick out a specific thing already mentioned, but Italian also often uses it to refer to a general category of thing: thus mi piace la bistecca could mean either "I like the steak" ie a particular steak in view or already mentioned, or else just "I like steak" ie steak in general.
So "I am eating a steak on Friday" - concerning a particular steak but one NOT previously mentioned - would be Mangio una bistecca venerdì, while "I am eating steak on Friday" - where the focus of attention is the generic foodstuff - is Mangio la bistecca venerdì. (Admittedly the last sentence is ambiguous in that it could be referring to a particular steak already mentioned; but anyway this is why la bistecca is being used here rather than una bistecca for the otherwise unqualified "steak")
It's a fine distinction but I find understanding such fine distinctions can really help give one a sense of how a foreign language "works". Otherwise it retains its air of mystery and the resultant sense of not really 'getting it' can be very frustrating.
1626
Shouldn't this be "I eat the steak on Friday". Wouldn't "I eat steak on Friday" be Mangio bistecca venerdi (can't do the accent here)?
525
You don't need the 'a' at all for days of the week. To refer to one particular Friday, the name of the day is enough (as in DL's preferred translation here). To refer to something that happens every Friday, you say either il venerdì or di venerdì (or even ogni venerdì or tutti i venerdì). (One other DL exercise has "i mercoledì" but this is a mistake)
For months on the other hand you can use "a" or "in" (which is preferred depends on the part of Italy you are in): a luglio, in dicembre etc.
For completeness I might as well add the situation for places: towns require "a" but countries, continents and regions use "in". This for both being in and travelling to: vivo a Roma, vado in Italia.
525
For a (single) day of the week eg (as here) "on Friday", no preposition or article is used in Italian. This contrasts with how you talk about months: "in March" does indeed require the preposition "a" (or alternatively "in"): thus a marzo. But "on Friday" is just the word for Friday: venerdì.
(If you wanted to say "on Fridays", meaning regularly every Friday, then you would add an article and say il venerdì. Be aware that there is a rogue Duolingo exercise which uses the plural article for this (ie "i mercoledi" or whichever day it was, I forget): this is wrong and misleading)