213 Comments
Maybe i'm overthinking, but why is it "Guido io"? Can't it be io guido or simply Guido ??
All three are possibilities. This sentence structure just emphasizes that nobody else is driving, just me.
This is common on latin-based languages (Portuguese at least, of which I am native), in that the order of the elements is not so important, but more the intonation. You can have a question written just like a statement, where the question mark alone will determine that you expect an answer. On the other hand, in languages like German or English, the order is much more important in building the phrase.
Vou responder-lhe na mesma língua. Esta sintaxe ("Dirijo eu") não é estranha. Quando duas pessoas estão disputando o direito de realizar determinada ação, dependendo da natureza da ação, uma delas pode dizer: "Isso faço eu!", "Irei eu!", etc. No presente caso, a ação em disputa é a de dirigir e aí alguém se antecipa e diz: "Dirijo eu!", que é a tradução exata do italiano "Guido io". A razão para a inversão do sujeito (eu) é a mesma da língua italiana: enfatizar a figura do executor da ação. Espero ter ajudado. Saudações. Em 23.03.2016.
Alvaro1944 Tl;dr Brincadeira; adorei a explicação...você é de Portugal ou do Brasil?
Why not use the reflexive verb structure then ie. mi ? Or can't you use mi with Guidare?
you can't drive yourself unless you drive yourself crazy. Io is used after the verb only for emphasis.
"I drove myself" is different than "I drove by myself." In the first I'm saying no one else drove me; in the second you're saying you drove alone. They're two totally different statements and both are correct.
To answer the question, "How'd you get to the hospital?" "Oh I drove myself", you would have to specify as "Oh, I drove by myself"
I think you can't because 'io' is the subject of the sentence, while 'mi' would be used when it's the object.
I think of it as "I'll drive!" the translation shouldn't be "I drive" for this phrase because in English you wouldn't say it like that unless you are a child learning how to speak hehe
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While it's true that in English we wouldn't usually say 'I drive', we would say 'I'm driving'. The problem with 'I'll drive' is that it is future tense. 'I'm driving' remains present.
Hi, Glen
I'm not sure about this, but don't think it's as simple as a bot doing the translating. I think there's a LOT of human intervention, including valid interpretations as they crop up.
(If you've ever used Google Translate, you get an idea of how sophisticated the Owl really is.)
I am often surprised by just how well the Owl handles translations that aim for meaning rather than literal, word-for-word decoding. (I should say, in the Italian course. In my not-even-slightly-humble opinion, it's noticeably better than the other two courses I use. French is very, very good, but the Italian is better.)
To give an example ... 'non trovo' - I do not find - is often used to mean 'I can't find'.
I entered 'I can't find' without thinking about it - and the Owl took it in its stride, no problem. Someone before me had taken the time to teach the Owl, and it probably cost them points at the time.
I think losing points is pain, but - if you can bear it - it's worth it to teach the Owl and improve everybody's experience.
Just my NESHO. :)
Weeell ... actually, not necessarily.
Dad: You can drive on the back streets, but when we get near to the motorway - I'm driving.
We do it so naturally in English, we don't even notice. We OFTEN us a present tense for a future meaning.
Gli Italiani do the same ... though not always at the times, or in the same way. That would be waaay too easy.
Have a good one :)
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Hello Linda. Thanks for taking the trouble to reply so comprehensively to my observation. Of course, you're quite right and I've had the same sort of experiences as you cited. All I intended to say was that it's usually a safe bet to translate tenses literally. But certainly, the bot translators are continually being tweaked in the right direction. Take care. :)
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Yes Linda, you're quite right of course. What I meant was that when a sentence is given in a particular tense we ought to be careful to translate the tense correctly because the bot doesn't know better and we could easily lose a point.
Thank you, you have a good day too :)
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I figured the word order was a matter of emphasis and responded, "I do drive." Wrong! I guess I emphasized the wrong thing, but "I drive" doesn't emphasize anything.
JohnGardne7: You figured correctly, it's about emphasis, but I think the idea is more: It's ME who's driving and not anyone else.
But, technically, only one person can drive the car. So if you're driving, of course no one else is driving. So what's the point of emphasis?
The point is not that one person or another is driving, the point is that in a group of perhaps equally possible drivers, one person is asserting emphatically that s/he's going to do the driving and no one else, hence reversal of subject and verb for emphasis.
In English we put more stress on the word to emphasize it. For example:
Who's driving, him?
No, I'M driving.
Chi guida, lui?
No, guido io.
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You're not overthinking. At first I put 'I drive myself' and it was thrown out. I can't help wondering if this is still a possibility - a kind of reflexive form. Just a thought.
I think in this case, it would be "Mi guido". But that's what I originally tought as well :/
This looks emphatic. Is this a normal way of providing emphasis? I AM driving!
(American English speaker) I learned a similar one: "pago io!" It's on me!
The emphasis is on "I" (I am driving not someone else). I think it is a fairly common way to emphasize the subject pronoun.
I also considered the emphatic I do drive, but I don't know if it would have been accepted
I'm thinking you could take the idea of "myself" two ways: either as an emphatic which seems to be the way most of the comments that mention it are taking it, namely "I myself am driving" in which case I think that putting the verb first accomplishes that. But "myself" can also be the direct object, as in "I'm driving myself to the hospital" - rather than having someone else drive me. In that case there's no emphasis. I'm wondering then if "Mi guido all'ospedale" would in fact be the way to say it.
rcpjenn: I think if you're emphasizing the driving, you'd probably see the reverse word order (with voice intonation stronger on the 'guido': io GUIDO. As written, the emphasis is on "I" implying as many other have said, that "I" am the one driving and no one else.
Hey, Tom. I use a couple of teaching methods, and I believe it was Pimsleur which explained that most of the time just thr verb is used, as in "guido." Pronouns are used for emphasis, whether they are placed before or after the verb. Ciao, amico mio!
No, it is not. This is Italian...not English slang. Guidare means "to drive," and "io guido" or just "guido" means " I drive."
Well, 'slur' kind of implies a racial slur right? And a guido is a stereotype, not a curse word based on ethnicity. (Sorry I quite like the stereotype for various Jersy Shore-like types)
"Slurs" don't just cover racially charged, biased remarks; they could include ethnic stereotyping or might simply be used to disparage someone's reputation using derogatory words. Slurs don't have to be vulgar or racially/ethnically motivated; they DO have to be disparaging, belittling...and so using the derogatory term "guido" to describe the dirtbags on Jersey Shore certainly qualifies as a slur. The fact that they're Italian-Americans makes no difference. They'd be crude and low-class regardless of whether they were Irish, Hispanic, African-American, Vulcans, or members of some other ethnic group. So don't use it to describe Italians or Italian-Americans...unless you want your legs broke, yuh gottit?
Ok, so there's a slight misunderstanding of the word 'slur' there on my side, but my point is still that in my conception of the word, 'guido' isn't a term for Italian(-American)s, but for a specific kind of trashy people (there's quite a lot of them in Holland, where I'm from, as well), whatever their ethnicity is; like you said, they could be Irish, Hispanic, whatever. So yeah, it's derogatory, but in a much less crude way. But don't worry I understand this is something you don't generally say to someone's face.
LindaB: Love your posts, Sister. Do check out FATHER GUIDO SARDUCCI on Saturday Night Live, especially given your user pic.
A-ha. Most nuns were Mafiosi in a previous life. Riiight.
Don't blame me if you wake up tomorrow with a horse's head in the bed.
Wearing a wimple.
:)
I think I got the same notion as a couple of others, that the reversal of the words was meant to be reflexive as in "I drive myself."
I don't think it's reflexive as much as emphatic, as in "it's Me that's driving", or "I'M doing the driving," rather than just the neutral, unemphasized "I'm driving".
It occurred to me that another emphatic in English for this one is, "I drive" meaning, "I'm going to do the driving among us."
it says Guido does mean both "drive" and "guide"? can someone confirm that? because sometimes Duolingo suggests a meaning and when you use it, it gives you a wrong answer.
AhmedOrban: I believe that's correct. As an example, "una visita guidata" is a 'guided tour'.
155 comments only none, wierd.
I'd like to know why the io is stuck at the end, and I'd like to know why it's there at all.
Can someone help explain questa risposta, per favore? I thought if the pronoun was after, like this, it is emphasized. I answered with “I drive myself” and it’s wrong. Grazie!
Guido is name of the little yellow in the movie Cars! I just figured that out lol :)
And here I thought this was just a man's name! Guido, come stai!
I'll drive -- should be acceptable. That's what we say! or "I'm driving."
True, but learning a language is about ideas not just words or in this case grammatical tenses. The question when given the sentence in Italian should be do users know what the hell's being said, do they understand it and not, do they like Google, translate sentences exactly, word for word or in the grammatically equivalent tense. The point is it should be about meaning when going from Italian into English and not about translating a word or a verb tense exactly. That said, going from English into Italian is another matter since as you imply, different tenses will express different ideas. Apologies if this comes across as a little too tense.
I agree with you, Germanlehrerlsu. I'm going to report the mistake, but I think it's also a useful point to be here in the discussion area. Here is an example in Italian I found by searching in Google:
Torni a casa domani? [Will you go back home tomorrow?]
No, sto qui fino a venerdì. [No, I will stay here until Friday.]
There are other ways to express the English here (Are you going...? No, I'm staying...), but I wrote that example to show how present tense "Torni" and "fino" can definitely mean "You'll go?" and "I'll stay."
The sound of this sentence sounds funny: "Guido Io". I had to put it on slow motion to understand what I was hearing
I am wondering why I drive is guido io and I study is io studio. Why does the verb come before in one and not the other?
Though not sure, I believe you could in fact say "studio io" but you'd be emphasizing that it's YOU who is studying rather than simply stating the fact the you're studying. Switching "normal" word order (for an English speaker) is I think done for emphasis. So it'd be the equivalent of saying, e.g., "It's ME who's studying." Or maybe "It's ME, (not someone else) who's studying..."
Yes, it´s a very emphatic phrase.
The speaker doesn´t want to say "I drive", but he wants to say: "Hey guys! Let´s go!, I´ll drive!" (I´m not an english native speaker, and I´m not sure it´s the real way to say it, but this is the idea"
Thanks! As with everything else in life, it's all about what you choose to emphasize.
OK, I've complained about this in the previous example in this unit, but the emphatic meaning of this particular type of inversion should have been explained in the entry. Even the answer doesn't explain it; it simply notes, incorrectly, that it's just another way of saying "I drive," with no difference between it and "Io guido." There's no way of intuiting from the entry the meaning of the inversion. This is really irresponsible and patience-testing.
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Hmmmm..............who got out of the wrong side of bed this morning. Here's a lingot to try and cheer you up a bit.
GlenM: Loved your patient (and generous) response. --Him will definitely very crazy drive it.
Take your lingot back, along with your condescension. It's not at all unreasonable to expect new concepts to be explained in foreign-language study.
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Please accept my apology. There was no intention of being condescending on my part. It was a failed attempt at lightening things up. Forgive me.
indigozeal: you're absolutely correct if you're talking about a structured course, as you'd find in a high school or college classroom setting, traditional language textbook, or in any number of self-help programs, perhaps Rosetta Stone. Duolingo on the other hand is not the kind of program that has the time or space, nor the personell, to devote to grammatical explanations. It's intended for those users interested in practicing concepts that have been studied and learned elsewhere. I believe most users know and accept that when they choose to begin this FREE program. Whatever grammatical explanations there are are those offered freely by generous users, too many to mention. Given your dissatisfaction with what you feel are the inadequacies of DL's format, it might be more useful and less frustrating to you to find something more suited to your needs.
Duolingo is structured & promoted like a course, not a reinforcement program, and aside from some aspects of verb conjugation I've had to look up elsewhere, I haven't had an issue using it as such. (Note, also, that its presentation of grammar & vocab is structured much differently from a typical language course, which, considering that Duolingo's topics are locked in a certain progression, would make it rather hard to use as a supplement to a course taken elsewhere.) The explanation of this grammatical point takes only a sentence or two - which Duolingo has offered for other grammatical issues elsewhere. (See: The voluminous explanation of how to state your job at the start of the Occupations chapter.)
Yes, the course is FREE, as you note. But Duolingo IS a business whose model is centered on acquiring & growing a userbase - Google for details - and if you're going to take the time to offer a service, for whatever motive (but especially if it's part of your business), it doesn't make sense to elide stuff that's so easily fixed, especially when you've done the other aspects well. If you take issue with encountering dissatisfaction in a discussion, then it might be less frustrating for you not to read the discussion thread at all.
(I don't understand why you seem to be construing my issue as an attack on other users. Of COURSE the folks who help out are generous. They shouldn't have to in order for a lesson to make sense, is my point.)
indigozeal: Pazienza, calmati, non perdere le staffe, è solo un esercizio!
In what sense "I drive? I drive the program or how? because I drive, or I drive a car could be Io condusco isn't it?
johans...I believe 'guidare' means to 'drive a car or other vehicle'.
RichardWei....: the verb means to drive. As for 'guide me' that's incorrect english, unless 'me' is the object in a command. "io" though is the subject, not the object.
Why is it "guido io" instead of "io guido" and are both correct? Or would it mean "I drive myself"?
Why is it "guido io" instead of "io guido" and are both correct? Or would it mean "I drive myself"?
Why is it "guido io" instead of "io guido" and are both correct? Or would it mean "I drive myself"?
Why is it "guido io" and not "io guido" ? From what I've seen so far the subject goes before the verb and now DL have reversed it. Is it just a quirk of the language that they say "drive I" or do they say "go I" "read I" etc? Help !
My family is Italian and knows a little. In Italy, Guido is used for Guy, not Drive
My family is Italian and knows a little. In Italy, Guido is used for Guy, not Drive
My family is Italian and knows some. In Italy, Guido is used for Guy, not Drive
My family is Italian and knows some. In Italy, Guido is used for Guy, not Drive
My family is Italian and knows some. In Italy, Guido is used for Guy, not Drive
My family is Italian and knows some. In Italy, Guido is used for Guy, not Drive
Guido means Dude.
Is it accepted to say, "Io guido" or just "Guido" for the same thing as Guido Io? Why do they put Io before Guido in this sentence?
why is it this way, not io guido? :) is it to accentuate that I am driving and not somebody else?
hello. why the place of verb and noun has changed??i was wondered that io guido is correct.could someone help me??thanks
hello. why the place of verb and noun has changed??i was wondered that io guido is correct.could someone help me??thanks
155 comments only none, wierd.
I'd like to know why the io is stuck at the end, and I'd like to know why it's there at all.
Why does the 'io' come after guido? And isn't it assumed based off the way it's conjugated?
Why does the 'io' come after guido? And isn't it assumed based off the way it's conjugated?
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Why not io guido? Also there appears to be 172 comments but none are showing up.
Isn't "guido" sufficient? Why is "io" at the end of the sentence rather than at the beginning. It's like the ungrammatical English "I drive me".
why use first person singular twice and if you do why the sequence guidio instead of io guido?
On the exercise, it says there are 193 comments, so I went into this page and it says "No one has commented yet". I am probably repeating something that 192 previous people have asked, but why this word order?
why use first person singular twice and if you do why the sequence guidio instead of io guido?
why use first person singular twice and if you do why the sequence guidio instead of io guido?
why use first person singular twice and if you do why the sequence guidio instead of io guido?
why use first person singular twice and if you do why the sequence guidio instead of io guido?
why use first person singular twice and if you do why the sequence guidio instead of io guido?
On the exercise, it says there are 193 comments, so I went into this page and it says "No one has commented yet". I am probably repeating something that 192 previous people have asked, but why this word order?
On the exercise, it says there are 193 comments, so I went into this page and it says "No one has commented yet". I am probably repeating something that 192 previous people have asked, but why this word order?
On the exercise, it says there are 193 comments, so I went into this page and it says "No one has commented yet". I am probably repeating something that 192 previous people have asked, but why this word order?
On the exercise, it says there are 193 comments, so I went into this page and it says "No one has commented yet". I am probably repeating something that 192 previous people have asked, but why this word order?
Guido is name of the little yellow in the movie Cars! I just figured that out lol :)
