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- Topic: Italian >
- "Abbiamo ottanta nipoti."
105 Comments
287
The closer to the Pope, the less they care about what the Church says. Like the French: Catholique avant tout, but they visit the church only three times in their life. Being baptized, being married, being buried.
287
My mother's mother, 148cm tall, (grandpa was 210cms) had nineteen children, of which my mother was nr. 16. Grandma died at 91. Talking about being tough...
An Italian speaker confirms here that it can be used in that way: http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=2104458
Thus, you have to rely on context to determine whether nipoti
is referring to just grandchildren, just the nephews/nieces, or all of the above. :) Hope this helps.
Because it's hasn't been programmed into the database. I check the drop down hints to see how the wind is blowing. Here there is no mention of nieces and nephews so I used grandchildren. It's not possible for Duo to have every possible version of every sentence so it usually has one correct but it gives the hints to help. (sometimes the hints are wrong)
According to Wiktionary here https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Proto-Indo-European/n%C3%A9p%C5%8Dt népōt (a reconstructed form, of course) was already there in Proto-Indo-European, and the original meanings were a) grandchild, b) decendant and c) (possibly) nephew. The text adds that the meaning "nephew" is confined to the west and centre of the Indo-European world. The link between "grandson" and "nephew" (or, as in Irish, "sister's son") seems to be "descendant", possibly grandsons and sister's sons had the same position in the relationship hierarchy? Thus, English "nephew" is not a Romance loan (from French or Latin) but nefa was already there in Old English. "Nepotism", however, is a loan (from French népotisme, from Italian nepotismo, from Latin nepōs (“nephew”)). I use "nepotism" as a mnemonic aid for "nepote/nepoti".
1917
Actually nipotino/a/i/e is just a diminutive form of nipote. It has the same meaning, except it is used for little kids or as an affectionate form of nipote. Someone's grandchildren/nephews/nieces might be either little kids or not and might be called either by affectionate name or not. It still all depends on context.
In some languages (as in Russian) there's actually no difference between brother/sister (брат/сестра) and cousin. They just add an adjective if they want to mean specifically cousin (двоюродный/ая, once-removed). In English the case of in-law relatives is similar: son/daughter/brother/sister/father/mother-in-law, any of which might have a different name in other languages.
In some languages (as in Bulgarian) there are different words for mother's-brother (вуйчо), father's-brother (чичо), mother's-sister's-husband (калеко), father's-sister's-husband (свако) all of which would be called uncle in English. The same is for aunt and for all sorts of other relatives. We just have to accept what each language offers or requires.
500
This could be explained by them A - belonging to ninja clan, B - belonging to cult, or C - embarking on starting a football team and trying to save money on the jerseys by making sure that all the jerseys have to get only one name printed on the back.
347
How would you know if someone was telling you about his nieces, nephews or grandchildren?