114 Comments
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I agree with you...when I speak with my Italian friends they say l'acqua even if it is NOT referring to a specific. According to them "you always use the article". So...need a native speaker to rule on this I think.
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I confirm... It is more correct and "usual" to say: "Noi beviamo l'acqua"
The omission of the article is possible in Italian but it follows precise rules
http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/omissione-dell-articolo_(La-grammatica-italiana)/
nevertheless the expression "Noi beviamo acqua" is acceptable but with a meaning of "some water" instead... for example "Beviamo acqua tutti giorni" = "Beviamo dell'acqua (or un po' d'acqua) tutti i giorni"
HTH
Ciao
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Oh, yes. Very hard, there are so many different symbols and the syntax is very confusing. It's not one of my favorites
My main languages are Spanish (a standard in high school) and Swedish, but I've also done quite a lot of Irish and Norwegian.
It really depends. I traveled Italy for about a month, and very few people used the specific "the" as in this case. I think it is a dialect thing.
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Even in english you can say "we drink water" or "we drink the water" right ? In italian is the same....
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for the english comment its kind of weird to say we drink the water. saying "the water" is more for when you're referencing specific water. like "we drink the water" in the context of talking about tap water for example. I hope that helps
"l" is the equivalent to water so in English it is ok to say we drink water instead of "we drink the water"
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Yes, something very fishy about this one, because the question before it for me was "The men drink water" and "l'acqua" was accepted. Along with several others of similar structure. Seems like an oversight.
You dont always have to put the it because it just means "the". It translates into "we drink water," its not like we say, " we drink the water"
There was no "l". The sentence was "we drink water". Not "we drink the water"
maybe the article il la l' refer to the. In the sentence doesn't say the water, it just say water.
Because we are talking about in general not making any specification on the type, place, nature, etc of the water.
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OK, hands up if you've got the drinking song from "La Traviata" playing in your head now. :-D
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Can this also be "we are drinking water" as well? Just wondered...
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You're right, the present progressive also works. In Italian, the simple present is commonly used the way an English speaker might use the present progressive.
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That is correct. Conjugation for verb "bevere" goes: io bevo (I drink), tu bevi (you drink), lui/lei beve (he/she drinks), noi beviamo (we drink), voi bevete (you drink), loro bevono (they drink)
I think coming voice might be different. I don't know that can tell you , I hope you understood. ^^ Actually my comment is my question, it's " How do we understand which you ?" ( my english is not good enough to explain it, then sorry :D )
If it's just acqua, then the sentence would be, "we drink water". If you say, "noi beviamo l'acqua" then it would mean, "we drink the water".
How do I know, where do I need to use "beviamo" or "bevono", or any other form? Can anyone help me with some grammer link?
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You can see this link but it's in Italian http://italianoperstranieri.loescher.it/archivio-di-grammatica.n445
For the verbs I have found this one http://www.italian-verbs.com/verbi-italiani/coniugazione.php?verbo=bere.
Good job!
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The hints didn't say "Drink" at all, so I put "Swallow" , which IS a hint for beviamo, and it marked it wrong
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Swallow=ingoiare- Drink=bere, when you drink you swallow, also the spit can be swallowed
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Conjugation of verbs in Italian is a bit more complicating than in English, where you only have to think about adding an -s to the end of the verb (present simple). Every personal pronoun needs a different form of verb. Regular Italian verbs follow three different conjugation patterns depending on the endings of the infinitive form of the verb (1. -are, 2. -ere, 3. -ire). Verb "bevere" (to drink) falls into the 2nd one. You get the right form of verb by dropping the infinitive ending –ere and adding the appropriate ending to the resulting stem. Here is a table for conjugations: http://goo.gl/zywAT
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Tl;dr you conjugate the verb according to the infintive verb ending: -are, ere, ire.
Whats the difference between all the drinks? Like bevono, bevete, beviamo, im so confuzed
Difference is not about the drinks, it's about the conjugation of the main verb bevere that means "to drink". Conjugation of "bevere" goes as : il bevo, tu bevi, lui/lei beve, noi beviamo, voi bevete and loro bevono.
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It's not "bevere" but "bere" and the personel pronoun of the first person is "io", "il" =the
Using this app, i was asked to translate this sentence, "Noi beviamo acqua," and got it wrong. The app corrected me using the following answer, "Let us drink water," instead of, "We drink water," or even, "We are drinking water." I'm so confused!
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You are right . The translation of: "Noi beviamo acqua" is We drink water...
But without a subject "noi", we could translate the same way in which Duolinguo suggests: "Let us drink water".
In Italian the first -person plural of present indicative and the first person plural of exhortative subjunctives are identical.
I leave a link , but it is in Italian ... sorry :)... I hope that helps
http://www.englishgratis.com/1/risorse/grammatica/gram-v-14-imperativo.htm
Ciao
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I've been learning italian at school and was told that italians usually omit the word for I, you, he she etc. Why is it included here? Are there specific cases you should say Noi beviamo as opposed to just beviamo?
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Ciao ZoJeffers,
You're right. The "personal pronouns" in Italian are... unusual.
It is much more common to find: "beviamo", without noi.
The presence of the pronoun, in this or in other cases, suggests that I want to emphasize a contrast between "noi" and... "others".
Ex.
noi beviamo acqua, mentre VOI bevete sempre vino! ~ We drink water while You always drink wine!
Best wishes
HTH
There are so many different answers that you could answer so I think there is many answers.
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Beviamo, Beve, bevi, and Bevo are all for the action of drinking. Beviamo is when a plural number of people are drinking. Bevi is when a Male is drinking. Beve is when a Female is drinking. And Bevo is when you are drinking. NOTE: When you are saying, "You drink" then you would use Bevo because you are not saying she or he. So therefore since you are not defining a gender then you would say Bevo for either Me, Myself, I, and You.
Im not sure when to use what endings on the verbs. Some are easier than others. Any help?
Is beviamo only used in plural sentences? Or could it be used as "Io beviamo acqua"? Would that just be "Io beve acqua"? I ask because in all other situations I have seen so far, beve has only been followed by l'acqua
The sentence: Noi beviamo acqua' by English context is correct which reads we drink water, meaning not a specific type of water but as a learner in the language italian l cann't say much. Thanks
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What is the diference between beve,bevi and why in that sentence there is amo?? (Sorry i'm not a native english speaker)
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Actually when I was doing this question it just didn't let me finish writing the respose and it automatically went marked as wrong not my fault
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We seem to be repeating the same things over and over and over and over again!!!!
When do i use "Noi beviamo acqua" or "Beviamo acqua"? It seems to be the same reguarding the examples given...
Take this thing off- i pratice at night and i share a room with 3 people who sleep. Please dont make this important.
of course we drink water because drinking water is very unusual!
DEFIANTLY no sarcasm right there
Can the translation of " We are drinking water" be " Noi siamo beviamo l'acqua" ? or am I just too ahead of myself :P
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It's literally translated from english It doesn't work like that Present simple and present continous have the same form in Italian It goes "Noi beviamo l'acqua"
I suck at figuring out what ending to use, iamo, ete, etc, is there a sheet somewhere i can see them all at once. Duolingo is not helping me learn them any better.
I'm still a little confused about using l' or not because I went through the whole thing and noticed that the only time they put l' in front was with bevete and bevono. How come just those two? And not all the other ones?
