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- "Io ho fame."
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I am new to the language I don't understand how Io ho fame= I am hungry instead of I have hunger
In other languages, hunger is a quality that you have rather than a state you are in. You "have the quality of hunger;" in that sense, you are right. But to translate that directly into English would be irrational because we don't talk like that.
I wrote I have hunger too, but got it wrong. Why is "I am hungry" not "Io sono fame"
In English, we say "I am hungry", the adjective. In Italian, they say "Io ho fame (I have hunger)", the noun. Different languages say things differently. It's about translating it into how it's said in that language, not word-for-word substitutions. It just doesn't work that way.
You can say "(Io)Sono affamato/a" - I am hungry or "Ho fame- literally I have hunger. Both mean the same thing.
I remember hunger because "fame" sounds and looks a bit like "famished".
Ciao Rosie: "Io ho fame" literally means "I have hunger", but that is just not the way English speakers say it, so it is translated as "I am hungry".
It is exactly the same with Spanish. We do not say: Yo soy hambre/ yo estoy hambre; and that would be the direct or exact translation for: I am hungry.
It's the same in french, we say "La femme a faim“ for" La donna ha fame"
But in Spanish is correct to say both "Estoy hambriento (I'm hungry)" and "Tengo hambre (I have hunger)".
Exactly. You would say "estoy hambriento" only when you want to sound funny. It's kind of like saying "I'm feeling esurient". Technically not wrong but no one would normally use it. For a second language speaker to pull of an unusual phrase is difficult, it just sounds like they don't know the normal phrase. Unless they are like so so so clearly very very good in the second language - until then better to stick to the normal language use.
Also in dutch: 'Ik heb honger'. So basically english is the only one using the verb 'to be' instead of 'have'
I have a friend who is a native Dutch speaker, and he says that you can say ik ben hongerig. It is grammatically correct and means something real, but it implies serious scarcity-level going hungry. When he was a child and tried to say "ik ben hongerig", his grandmother would remind him that she lived through the Great Depression and "wij waren hongerig" but "je hebt honger".
Althought in spanish we can say: Yo estoy hambriento. Could there be a direct translation in italian for this phrase?
"I have hunger" as "io sono affamato"? Questa potrebbe essere la traduzione migliore
It's like saying "I'm edacious". Technically not wrong but it's not a 'neutral' phrase like "I'm hungry". If you say it you're not just saying that you're hungry but you're also sending other messages ("look, I have a big vocabulary / I'm funny / etc.).
I love how Italian is so similar to English! Fame=hungry
Fame is similar to our word famine.
It is because English, Italian and many other European languages all derive from Latin.
The Romance languages come from Latin: French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian. English is actually a Germanic language, but it does take a lot of vocabulary from various Romance languages (most notably French).
don't forget that the Normans (who were Scandinavians who settled in Normandy) spoke French, as did the royalty & nobility for some time in England.
Yes, that's exactly how English got much of its non-Germanic vocabulary.
@kered9:
I am pretty sure it is the other way around. Europe relied on England so heavily that their languages all devolved from English
As someone who has studied linguistics and the history of languages, as well as having a passing familiarity with the history of Europe, I have to say sorry, but that's completely wrong. Until a few hundred years ago, English was a low-status Germanic language. It is a mutt of a language because it's absorbed the vocabulary of all of its invaders. If other languages have English borrowings, those are much more recent and far, far fewer.
this is also why English is such a hard language for non english speakers (or english speakers, in my case) to learn.
El inglea no deriva del latin deriva del idioma anglosajon, los idiomas "romances" es decir derivados del latin son español, italiano, frances y portugues, es por esto que estos cuatro idiomas se parecen tanto, y nos es mas facil a los hispano hablantes aprenderlos
There are Latin roots in English as the Romans occupied the Britannia. As there are are French roots, German, Danish, etc. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Greek_and_Latin_roots_in_English
I know, but the language itself doesn't derive fom Latin. French, Spanish, Italian, Catalan, Portuguese do.
That is because they share the same Latin root word "fames" meaning "I hunger"
This form is also used to say "I am thirsty", "I am afraid", etc.
(I am hungry. = Ho fame.) (I am thirsty. = Ho sete.) (I am afraid. = Ho paura.)
If anyone knows more examples, I will add them to the list. Thanks.
Can I shorten it to be "ho fame"? Will it still have the same meaning with I'm hungry?
This is just like in German, when they say "Ich habe Hunger". It literally means I have hunger, even though it is "I am hungry" ;)
1030
It occurred to me that this makes a lot more sense when your native language isn't English, or when you speak other languages - like German, where you can also say "I have hunger". Takes a bit getting used to when you learn Italian from English, and English isn't your native language...
Because for one, you're saying "the hunger," and for another, "hunger" is feminine and would be "la fame."
When you speak it, do you connect Io and ho like "i-o fame" or do you literally say "io ho fame"?
When pronouncing, should I pronounce 'Io' and 'ho' separately or combine them as one
Ho is have. So why is this sentence "io ho fame" because that would mean "I have hungry"?
The idiom in the Romance languages is "to have hunger/thirst" rather than "to be hungry/thirsty". fame is the noun "hunger" not the adjective "hungry".
I have hunger=I am hungry. This is why I like languages, they express something in a way I have never thought of.
In English we say "to be hungry" (adjective). In Italian, they say "to have hunger" (noun).
It's how the verb conjugates.
AVERE (irregular)
io ho
tu hai
lui/lei ha
noi abbiamo
voi avete
loro hanno
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I have tried to write ho fame, but duolingo insists on io ho fame. Why is that? Why can't I leave io out as in '(io) ho un libro'?
ho fame really ought to be accepted. There is nothing special about this or ho un libro. You might have had an extra space somewhere or it might have glitched.
Because translation is not word substitution. In English, we say "I am hungry".
