69 Comments
12
Poor grandma...she has to make a birthday cake for her grandchildren every day
Since the probability of 130+ select people having different birthdays is comparable to winning a lottery, a lot of those cakes get shared. Nevertheless, grandma should rather open a cake business.
In fact, you only need about 30 people in a room to have a 50/50 chance that two share the same birthday.
I think its where italian communities all have good solidarity. It means everyone knows everyone else and makes big families through association.
Would this sentence also count nieces and nephews? So whoever is saying this sentence is saying that the total number of their grandchildren AND nieces and nephews is 80?
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.
Since we have no context why is "we have eighty nieces and nephews" not accepted? It also seems the more logical option.
- 13
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)
Because your translations specifically states that both are included, whereas the original sentences doesn't make that specification and leaves that to the (not existing) context
That's because the word before it, shares the same vowel as the word after it, so you only pronounce one vowel.
Hence why you heard tanta, but you was actually hearing, "Abbiam'ottanta". I hope that helps.
How would one say 'We have so many grandchildren.'?
Would it be 'abbiamo tanta nipoti'?
I just have realized that we do not conjugate numbers per genders/plurals (only ordinal numbers)
Does anyone know why the word is the same for nephews and grandchildren? I'm curious what the history is that makes this so confusing...
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".
Is the word for nieces/nephews and grandchildren really the same in italian?
This actually makes sense if they have 10 children and each child has 8 children :\
my mother in law told me that nipote means nephew, niece, grandson and granddaughter to help differentiate when speaking about grandchildren we add ino or ina to the word so if you want us to be specific in the plural grandchildren would be nipotini - I had used we have eighty nephews and nieces
- 1444
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.
I agree with many of the comments below. Out of context 'nephews and nieces ' seems the most likely translation.
Why should nephews be more correct? Without context grandchildren is best since it doesn't specify any gender in neither language.
- 146
How would I tell people that I have grandchildren and nephews and nieces?
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.
