72 Comments
why can't it be "I smell the battery"? Sentire can mean either to hear or to smell, no?
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Thank you, you make me feel better. And you clarify "sentire" for me :-)
According to http://www.wordreference.com/definizione/sento it can also "Percepire per mezzo dei sensi, ad esclusione di quello della vista", so it could even mean "I feel the battery" ... maybe if you are sitting directly on the battery and it is getting hot.
Also on wordreference: "Ascoltare prestando attenzione:" Listen for something.
Can sentire also mean "actively feel for something"? "I am feeling the battery"?
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It accepted "I feel the battery" - kind of a strange activity to write a question about, but I guess at least it is plausible somehow (maybe a mechanic working?).
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As kids, we used to test 9 volt batteries by touching them to our tongues... and if there's a charge you definitely feel the battery!
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I had a little 9-volt transistor radio and a battery charger, so I would also test the battery with my tongue to see if it had charged sufficiently. If not, it was time to go to Wal-Mart for a 9-cent special.
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in this case "batteria" means "drum", but even so if you stand next to a drum you can fell it
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you mean fell into it :D okay, I understand this is just a typo, but a funny one :)
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Only in the context of subconscious intuition. There are more common choices, e.g. avvertire. See http://dizionari.repubblica.it/Inglese-Italiano/S/tosense.php?lingua=en.
Sentire has several meanings, depending on which physical sense is in the context (e.g. batteria -> hear). See http://dizionari.repubblica.it/Italiano-Inglese/S/sentire.php
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Since every other question in this section involving batteria was about a battery for a car, this was bizzare to say the least. Although there was also strummento and other musical terms, so I guess this was added to show words meaning different things? Tough without a context though.
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Every question I have had since I started this lesson has related to a car. But now I get "Sento la batteria - I hear the drum". What an odd thing.
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I had the same reaction! But I think it's just the same as when we got questions about salt (sale) in a lesson about places, (sale = plural for salon). I think Duolingo is just choosing questions about "batteria" and the program isn't sophisticated enough to know when it means "drum" and when it means "battery."
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First time with "batteria" it suggests drum kit ... I put drum kit then it tells me the "kit" part is wroong
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I agree; since "drum kit" is the first translation shown, "drums" should be accepted as a translation.
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The dictionary translates an electrical battery as 'una pila'; the French word is 'la pile'. A single drum is un tamburo. Only a drum kit, which is to say "the drums", is 'una batteria'.
So I think we are looking at the original meaning of 'battery' here, which is several identical objects arranged and used as a set. A gun battery certainly preceded any electrical battery (which strictly speaking is several cells linked together) but it's possible that the military took the word from the one used in army bands. From the same root we have "batteria da cucina", which in Britain is normally used in the French form without translation, but means the set of pots and pans.
So actually Duolingo's translation is wrong: drum should be plural.
"Can you hear the drums, Fernando? ..."
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Battery is la pila in Spanish too, although google translate's first definition for bateria is an electrical battery. I've only ever heard "pila" in spoken Spanish used to describe a battery and "bateria" for a drum kit. Interestingly, google also recognized bateria as battery in the sense of assault and battery. (Beating someone up, just like you would beat a drum)
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There is a glitch in this answer...the translation says "I hear the drum". Hopefully they can fix it in the next update.
Maybe a good way to remember batteria (drum) is to think of BATTERing a drum
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it's also drums in Spanish, I was always confused when they named the players and suddenly there's someone playing batteria
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Shouldn't this question appear in the section for idioms. For "Sento la batteria" I wrote: "I smell the battery". The correct answer however is "I hear the drum". ???
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No, I believe 'batteria' is the same word for battery and drum kit. It's the same thing in Portuguese, although I'm not sure why the words are the same. tl;dr 'batteria' also means drum kit, it's not an idiom
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See my post about how battery = drums
https://www.duolingo.com/comment/2194025
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Apparently it can mean either? Kind of weird, but then language in general is weird.
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In French, la batterie can mean both "the drum kit" and the battery. It only becomes a problem when you're a drummer and you bring a battery to the show.
Yes I have, when you charge a car battery it makes a little bubbling sound
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Did anyone else hear a difference in pronunciation between this example and previous ones?
I heard previously "batter-EE-a" for battery and in this example "batt-ER-ia" for drum(s).
I discarded "feel the battery", and "hear the battery", had to cheat and look at the translation, and I can understand why it means "I hear the drum". One of those things that have to be memorized, I guess.
battery also means drum/noise of war. noise of guns. unit of artillery. brutality etc, but mainly loud noises as guns and mayhem, in wars.
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"La batteria" can be one or more drums. What was wrong with Barbara545726's answer was the use of "a" instead of "the"
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Not "one". Batteria is a generic word meaning a set or array of things and in some some contexts means specific things - like drums. Have you never heard of a "gun battery", or batterie de cuisine? An electrical battery is so called because it was originally an array of cells wired together.
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Then Google Translate was wrong (wouldn't be the first time), as it shows both singular and plural forms of "drum" for "la batterie".
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Google Translate uses statistical analysis of bilingual texts, not references, and should be treated as a quick start to a translation. In fact, it includes Duolingo texts, so the singular could conceivably be due to Duo's error and this discussion!
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it would be correct if it were una batteria, but here we have la batteria, which means the drum :P
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No, I meant it is the drums, or set of drums, or drum kit. Plural drums. This noise is not a lonely drum. Duo's current translation is wrong. This is all in previous comments.
If you look it up in Italian-only, not in Italian-English, batteria = complesso degli strumenti a percussione, or more generally a set of whatever you like complesso di elementi, di oggetti affini per un determinato scopo, as in the common batteria da cucina for pots and pans.
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what I meant is that you used the wrong article. In that case the correct sentence would be I hear the drums, although a single drum is also used - look at snares during military parades, etc.
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kurzebingo. I have pondered over this for quite some time now. At first, my thought was the same as yours, but I must say that I now agree with malcolmissimo.
Everywhere I look I find that "batteria" is a group of objects such as drums, kitchenware, guns etc., and therefore a single drum would be wrong. The reason why "la" is used is because a "batteria" is a singular entity comprising a number of items. Consider for example, the English: "A drum kit", "A battery of guns", "A battery of hens". To say "La batteria" is similar to saying "La famiglia".
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I didn't disagree with his use of singular/plural, I disagreed with the article ;) duo is really strict about that
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Ok! So, do you mean that "La batteria" is wrong, and should be "Una batteria"? If so, why?
In this context "La batteria" means "The drums" or "The drum kit", whilst "Una batteria" means "A drum kit".
As far as I can see, it is Duo's English translation which is wrong and should be: "I hear the drums" or "I hear the drum kit"
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@kurz No need to guess. The Italian-only dictionary (no translations) is perfectly clear that una batteria is - above all else - a set of things, and that one of the common usages where you don't need to name the things is a set of percussion instruments / drums.
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@malcolm looking back at the discussion I think we kind of misunderstood each other, I merely pointed to the fact that he wrote 'a' when the article is 'la', that's all; if I remember well I wrote 'the drums' when answering this one because everytime it was always weird for me that Spanish band members had 'batteria' written next to them if they were a drummer
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1) not uno, because batteria is feminine, so una
2) if you look at Google Translate, the translations for batteria are:
1) battery - batteria, pila;
2) drums - batteria;
3) drum - tamburo, batteria, fusto, bidone, timpano;
My guess is that it can be used both for a single part of a drum kit and the whole kit.
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sento una batteria "i hear a drum"...the italian has the feminine definite article "la" which is "the"in english, hence, i hear THE drum...hope that helps :)
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The latin root "battuere" means "to beat" and is parent to many words in various languages: the English "to beat" itself, "butter" (beaten milk), "battery" in warfare (a row of weapons for hitting the enemy), "bat" (a hitting stick), "battle", etc.
"Battery" as a name for the electrical cell was, according to [1], used first by Benjamin Franklin in order to refer to electric discharges which, well, kinda hit you.
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"butter" comes from farther back. Latin took it from the ancient Greek 'bouturon' which is "cow's cheese"
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A literal translation of sentire is "to perceive". Judging from an Italian native dictionary (not IT-EN), the context (e.g. batteria, suonare, etc.) tells us which sense is intended. To resolve ambiguity, you'd use sentire col l'udito / al gusto / all'odore / al tatto or any of their many synonyms. "To hear" seems to be the assumed default.
Surely this must be an endless source of puns in Italy?
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I thought "drum"? What? Then I looked it up. Batteria also means drum. It came out of nowhere, strange.
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No it doesn't, it means the drums - plural. Duolingo is wrong. Suggest you read the discussion to understand.
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This was the first time I had come across the word 'batteria' so put my answer as 'I hear the battery' which was marked correct!! It made me laugh so much because I have never heard a battery make any noise. This must go into the same group as 'the electric shoes'. Love these weird sentences that pop up every now and again and certainly makes learning fun.
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Drums. Drums in the deep. Cannot get out. They are coming. Cannot get out.
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FEELING BATTERIES IS NOT A REGULAR OCCUPATION FOR MOST PEOPLE
MUM.... WHEN I GROW UP I WANT TO BE A BATTERY FEELER DOESN'T SOUND RIGHT SOMEHOW
