"He drinks milk."
Translation:Lui beve latte.
16 Comments
Why is "il" needed here? "He drinks milk" not "he drinks the milk"
Lui beve il latte ?= "he drinks the milk"
Lui beve latte ?= "he drinks milk"
Here are the options:
- Lui beve latte.
- Lui beve il latte.
- Lui beve del latte.
- Beve latte.
- Beve il latte.
- Beve del latte.
- you can even use egli if you're feeling a little crazy
Basically, the use of the definite and the partitive don't match up precisely with the way they're used in English. There are a few discussions throughout the site on the Italian use of the definite article (one here http://duolingo.com/#/comment/295808) if you want to know more.
1890
Does this help?
https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/5643202$comment_id%3D28037197
Why is latte masculine in italian, and feminine in other romantic languages. And that begs the etymological question, when were things determined as masculine and feminine, and HOW did they determine them as such? Intuitively, it would make sense that milk is feminine, seeing as it is always derived from the female in nature. Anyone have thoughts or a good article on this subject?
- 1890
Actually, the word that translates as "milk" was masculine in the original Latin, and remains masculine in many Romance languages. That it's feminine in Spanish seems to be the exception.
http://www.nativlang.com/romance-languages/grammar/nouns-gender.php
- 1890
Without knowing more about what precisely happened, I'd say glitch. That should have been correct, assuming you didn't make a typo or something like that.
- 1890
That's an error. It should be "Lui beve latte".
"Bevi" is the "tu" conjugation.
- 1890
That's perfectly grammatical, but if you want to specify he drinks vs she drinks, then you need the pronoun.
