- Forum >
- Topic: Italian >
- "Sono i miei abiti."
99 Comments
How does the usage of "vestiti" differ from "abiti"? "Vestiti" (which is obviously related to the English "vestments") seems to have the secondary sense of "dresses," while "abiti" (cf. the archaic English word "habit") also means "suits." Does one of them come closer to signifying "clothing" in the generic sense?
Both words in both languages derive from Latin, respectively vestitus (past participle of vestio, to dress: clothed, dressed, but also cover and clothing) and habitus (past participle of habeo, "to have": retained, maintained, but also habit or disposition). So as you can see, "vestito" comes closer to the original meaning; in modern Italian there is no distinction in meaning though.
Okay, so while Duolingo tends to associate "vestiti" with images of women's clothing and "abiti" with men's clothing, there are no firm gender associations with either word, right?
If I'm right there isn't a big difference. My class (me using duolingo to keep my skills up) didn't seem to.
I can't seem to figure out when to use "gli" versus "i" with masculine plurals that begin with a vowel. Any help? Rules to live by?
as far as I understand, 'Gli' is used before nouns beginning with a vowel, g, sc or gn. Otherwise it's 'i'
You're for the most part correct; however, masculine nouns beginning with a 'g' do take i (i generi). Furthemore, all masculine nouns beginning with an impure 's' or 'p' (that is, if it has another consonant after it: ps, sc, pn etc.) take lo and gli as well.
1770
"sono i miei" = "they are my" I want to try to incorporate italian in my everyday language. So sometimes when I am doing a daily task, or when someone says something in lectures at university I try to translate it into Italian to practice :)
Does anyone else do that?
When you mouse over the word it states it means "clothing". It's plural. So this means clothes. Why not mouse over the word and have it mean "suits?"
It could mean clothing too. In the singular, "abito" is usually a suit, but in the plural it acquires a more generic meaning; the plural of abito is still abiti though.
Yes it can mean 'clothing', but not in this sentence, you never say: 'Those are my clothing'.
Yeah, I keep doing that and finding the translation I know isn't there. I report it when it happens.
Or, in the sense of "clothing makes the [wo]man": I am my suits. I'm joking, but does that work?
You would have to specify "io" in that case: "io sono i miei abiti" If the subject is omitted, people will naturally assume you mean the mostly likely interpretation (which is "They are my suits/clothes")
Whether or not "io sono i miei abiti" has a similiar idiomatic meaning to the English idiom "Clothing makes the man" - that I don't know. (Probably not though because idioms are usually language specific) ...but it's a valid sentence even if it's a nonsensical one.
I think neither sentences "i am my clothes" and "they are my clothes" don't make any seance, so that is why it is hard to translate them correctly.
"They are my clothes" does make sense in English. "They" is not only a personal pronoun. For example, you could point to a pile of shirts, pants, socks, and ask "Whose clothes are they?" And someone could answer, "They are my clothes."
He would probably answer: "That are my clothes". It sounds more natural in English.
Or I could say, "who's clothes are these all over the table?!?" And someone could say, "oops. Those are my clothes. "
- 129
Yes, but you'd want to write it "Whose clothes are these...." "Who's" is a contraction for "Who is." "Whose" is the possessive. ;-)
- 129
Yes. (Suits - plural - actually.) And in English, the word "suit" can be:
-
a set of business clothing (pants or skirt, plus jacket, and sometimes a vest)
-
the clothing you wear to go swimming
-
all the cards in a deck that depict hearts (or spades, clubs, or diamonds)
-
a verb meaning "to please" or "to satisfy" ("That suits me.)
-
a legal term for a court process ("He filed suit against the company.")
and a few other things besides.
Isn't language grand? ;-)
For me at least, there is an error. When I hover over the word "abiti" it comes up as saying that it means "(you singular) live". Has anyone else had that problem?
I have read in an italian forum that "abito" is generally a little more formal than "vestito", although Italians seem to believe that perhaps this is not that strict anymore. Another distinction that some people make in the forum is that they usually use "vestito" to refer to a woman's dress and "abito" to refer to a man's suit. Can anyone say if this is close to reality please? thanks!
Edit: apparently the woman - vestito and man - abito connection is not always the case, because I understand that, for example, to refer to a woman's gown at a, say, formal ceremony you would use "abito". Not "vestito". The abito - formal, vestito - less formal connection seems to be accurare though.
In the sentence "sono i miei" must mean "those are" instead of "they are" because abiti are suits (thing not person or animal)
"They" does not always refer to people or animals. It is also used for inanimate things. "Those" adds additional meaning which is not present in the context of the sentence from Duolingo, but could be correct.
- 318
Why is it pronounced ábiti and not abíti? I've been trying to make sense of the rules for which syllable gets emphasis.
I'd advise you to learn the accents as you go instead of trying to find a rule: making sense of it requires a good knowledge of phonology and philology, and that's besides the point of learning the language.
In Latin the rule is rather easy: if the second-to-last vowel is long it carries the stress, otherwise it falls on the third-to-last. The problem is figuring out when a vowel is short or long as classical Latin didn't use diacritics. In "habitus" A was long while I and U were short, hence the stress fell back on the A.
Italian obviously carried over most of the pronunciation from Latin, but words changed without changing stress (e.g. from vírtus - virtútem - virtù), new words were formed or imported from other languages, and some spelling conventions like attached clitics can increase the number of syllables in a word without changing its original stress.
According to the italian "google pics", abiti means a woman's dress and not a formal suit. Weird... Am I missing something ?
I thought that was weird! In a former question 'Where do you live" , I aswered "Dove vivi?". One of the acceptable answers was aslo "Dove abiti" ....lol
I recall in northern Italy "costume" being used for "suit." Is this a regionalism?
What sort of suit? "Costume" is typically used for bathing suits, but no other suit comes to mind. If it's a regionalism, I've never heard of it.
I'm talking about a man's business suit. I recall my friend buying a suit and calling it a costume. Same word as "un costume di bagno." Those was in northeastern Italy around Conegliano and Vittorio Veneto.
Hey, just to make sure, "abito" is used for men's and women's more formal clothes, right?
A moment ago i was dinged wrong for using sono in "they are my suits ", that i had to use essi. Now i just had to translate "sono i miei abiti". Cmon duolingo
My answer 'are my clothes' was wrong! The right answer should be 'it's my clothes'. Cmon!!!
"It is my suits"? This should read in proper English "they (or 'these') are my suits" or "it is my suit". Not "it is my suits".
You're right, it is. Vestiti would be suits, as even my Italian born, Italian teacher said
"That are my clothes" is wrong, but "that is my clothes" is apparently correct!
- 129
"That is" is correct, because "that," which is singular, is the subject of the sentence, which must agree with the verb (singular "is"). "That is my clothes" is rather awkward, though, and best avoided.
"i" the the plural of "il", like "le" is the plural of "la", and "gli" is the plural of "lo". Italian generally keeps the articles (il, la, lo, i, le, gli) when English would omit them. They would say "i miei abiti, le mie maglie, etc." where English would just say, "my suits", "my sweaters", and NOT "the my suits", "the my sweaters". So for a clear English translation, you can leave out translating the "i". But you need to include it when speaking / writing Italian.
"i miei abiti" is plural = my suits. "il mio abito" = my suit. So it has to be "they are". "Sono" = "They are"
It's my suits is not grammatically correct. It should be either It is my suit, or they are my suits (which is what I typed)
- 129
Coats are only one type of clothing. http://de.pons.com/%C3%BCbersetzung?q=abiti&l=enit&in=&lf=it
Does the word "abito/abiti" also fit in the context where the Iron Man or Spiderman says he's putting on the "suit" for an imminent fight?
Your translation says "It's my suits" which is grammatically incorrect. Should be with It's my suit. Or They're my suits.
- 1133
I thought this meant 'I am my suits' and I figured that was some Italian saying or something, but nope :')
- 1227
If abiti means suits why does Duo mark it wrong and insist on vestiti when translated the other way?
So if this is correct why did the app mark "clothes" as an incorrect translation of "abiti" in the previous exercise? Please sort this out.
Why 'those' instead of 'they' is sometimes correct and sometimes not? In this case it's incorrect. in english you don't say 'they are my suits' but 'those are my suits', right? (Or 'these', i'm not an native english speaker)
"They are my suits," "Those are my suits," and "These are my suits" are all grammatically correct in English. "These" is used to refer to something right here. "Those" refers to something away from you, over there, out of sight, and so on. I can't speak for the accuracy of the translation from Italian, however. [US English native speaker]
Why in the world do we need to learn 3 different word for "suit" in this beginner level course?!
Last week all my oral exercises have been right, but now all are wrong...? Some problem with microphone?
The pronounciation sounds like "Son i miei" instead of "Sono i miei" is this accurate to do when speaking Italian or is the speaking tool just going too quick?
I thought abiti was a form of "to live". Like "dove abiti?" is "where do you live?" at least if I remember my college Italian correctly...
Why use a singular verb form for a collective noun? 'sono'- I am 'miei abiti'- my suits. We clearly use a plural - THEY ARE. This is odd......
Can someone explain how to know where to put the stress on nouns in Italian? I can't figure out the rule. I thought abiti would have the stress on the A but the audio makes it sound like it's on the first I
- 843
So why do you use abito or even abito when you like but we are wrong if we use abito in a sentence like I have a suit?
Here's why in detail. Sono is the "they" form of essere as well as the "I" form. Since this isn't referring to yourself, it'd be "they" usage
