18 Comments
"La sua risposta"
= His answer = Her answer = Your answer (formal)
Reported!
I am so damn polite in my humble nature :) that I translated "your answer" which is formal and should have been accepted as correct. But I understand what they're trying to teach us here. ;)
GJ Duolingo
Keep in mind that on Duolingo we only accept the formal you with capitalized terms... so:
- Lei mangia una mela / You eat an apple / She eats an apple
- Chi è lei? / Who is she?
- La zuppa è per Lei / The soup is for you
You will find some other sites, magazines, newspapers where the formal you is not capitalized... why? Well, they're not breaking any rules :) However, many teachers and authorities on language do prefer this system... we prefer it because it prevents many new language learners from becoming frustrated and totally confused.
Is there a section later on that teaches the formal? Or do we just pick it up as we go along?
313
My take: 'than' is used to compare a quantity (measurable), as in more than, less than, redder than, smaller than, larger than, tinier than, later than, closer than, faster than.
'different' does not indicate a quantity or not yet, just different, therefore 'different from' -this is also close to the 'da', I'd say.
Some might say 'different to --' but IMO this sounds slightly like the -- is not yet well known to the speaker and the thought is forming as the person is speaking, or is further in proximity or time such as "this is different to that blue over there"; whereas 'different from' refers to a known position or time, as in "this is different from my car's blue"
Lastly, preferred uses differ :-)
- 294
I think they expect ‘from’ as the translation of ‘dalla’; even though ‘different to’ is quite common British English it is not such a close translation.
Wouldn't this be the female tense? Usually when I see an a at the end of an italian word, I assume that it is singular female tense. Am I incorrect?
The word for answer, riposta, is feminine. The gender of the person giving the answer is not specified in this sentence. It would be known from the context. So the gender of the person is defaulted to male. Sua is the possessive pronoun, which is constructed differently to English. In English the possessive pronoun tells you the gender of the posessor, but in Italian it is the gender of the thing possessed.
<pre> Il suo gatto = "His cat" or "Her cat"
(gender of cat either specifically male or unspecified)
Il sua gatto is grammatically incorrect
La sua gatta = "His she-cat" or "Her she-cat",
but it is definitely the cat who is female,
not necessarily the owner.
</pre>
There are many wonderful posts, explaining it better, about this because it is difficult at first. You can search for "possessive pronoun" in the discussion page.
Moral of the story: Once you understand cats, you understand life.
