"We get the books at the bookstore."

[MABBY]

"in" may mean "at the", sometimes, but "nella" (also accepted as correct) should only mean "in the", shouldn't it?

[mdcooper88]

I was wondering about this too. I put "della" and got marked wrong

[brienza112]

Should ricevere be a better verb to use than prendere?

[ZibbiG]

Can't you say "otteniamo i libri in libreria"?

[nattys422]

why is it incorrect to add the article 'la' in front of libreria?

[Chris123456]

"In" is one of those difficult little prepositions that can mean so many things in Italian. In this context it means "at the" so if you were to use "la" as well, in front of libreria, you would be saying "at the the"

Hope this helps.

[ziggKogg]

So does that mean "Prendiamo i libri alla libreria" isn't acceptable??

[kwinke]

That's what I tried and it didn't work for me. Even though I think in this case it should have been OK as it seems like a classic use of alla to mean "at the"

[Ruthnona]

I agree. Alla should work. Nella indicates "in the bookshop" surely?

[Karmaria]

Duolingo takes a while before making changes but it works now!

[katazap]

I have the same question

[mangoHero1]

It accepted it when i typed it :)

[Ruthnona]

thank you. it does help!

[ChipAgapi]

forgot when to use "gli" - can someone help? thx

[Lasssa]

"Shouldn't prendiamo i libri dalla libreria" be also correct (by antonio my italian friend (he made me type this))

[tidyas]

"We get the books at the bookstore." = "Prendiamo i libri in libreria."
(they are there, we take them. I think it means that is the place we take them from; they may or may not be FROM the library).

The English sentence is a bit ambiguous, it's more like
"We get the books from the bookstore" = "Prendiamo i libri dalla libreria"
da + la = dalla

"We take the books to the bookstore" = "Portiamo i libri in libreria."
(they are somewhere else, we transport them there)

"We take the bookstore books" = "Prendiamo i libri della libreria"
(they belong to the bookstore / they are from the bookstore)
de + la = della

Can anyone extend / correct / improve this ?

[Laragazza215994]

I'm not italian, but a Spanish native. I believe this preposition works similar to Spanish "en". It seems that dalla" is " from", and the sentence states that the books were "at the" library, not from the library.

[Ariaflame]

Not library. Bookstore. Library is biblioteca, bookstore is libreria. Yes, I know.

[Vaibhav194322]

I typed 'al' instead of 'in'. But would 'alla' be the correct word ?

[Vaibhav194322]

Yes, alla is acceptable

[KathyH834236]

agree, why cant we use otteniamo