42 Comments
What I don't get is that I already got "Sono basso" for the same translation. Are they interchangeable for referring to yourself, or does your own gender matter?
Gender matters. "Basso" is masculine singular, whereas "bassa" is feminine singular.
For persons: basso/a is used for people who/things that are not tall >> short. In other situations it would be "low" Alta marea <> bass marea. High tide <> low tide.
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- Short (height): Use basso (bassa/ bassi/ basse)
- Short (length): Use corto (match gender/ quantity)
- Short (time): Use breve
- Short (missing; not there): Use insufficiente
I wrote "I am low", referring to feeling down or depressed, though as an English speaker I admit I would more likely say "I am feeling low". Just curious though, can "Sono basso/a" refer to feeling low or depressed?
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For "they" (all male or a mixed gender group), the correct answer is "sono bassi "; or "sono basse " if the plural group is all females.
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Read the rest of this thread. You will see that you are mistaken. 'bassA' is singular, so the subject of the sentence cannot be 'they'.
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I think that They are short is Sono bassi for masculine and Sono basse for feminine.
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It's not incorrect if the speaker is male. But 'bassa' is correct if the speaker is female.
i got the sono basso and answered i am low, it is correct when i got this one which is the same except feminine i gave the same answer but it was wrong. makes no sense, it doesnt necessarely have to be short. sono basso could also be im bassy if im not mistaken. same strange/annoying thing with piccola where it refered to young and small was wrong. This makes no sense what so ever.
Why is it "sono bassA" if it is describing oneself? Shouldn't it be "soon bassO"? Can someone explain please?
Thank you. That's correct. I actually just figured it out just a few moments ago haha. It depends on the object being described, as you said.
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in different cases are wright both: sono bosso and sono bassa/ How may be so?
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The sentence begins "I am ...". Either a man or a woman could be speaking.
If a man says this sentence, he uses "basso" because he is male. If a woman says this sentence, she uses "bassa" because she is female.
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In the sentence DL gives us, the word "bassa" is singular (feminine singular), so "they" or "they're" is not a possible subject.
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You can't tell by the pitch of the voice. For example, a woman reading a recorded novel would read all the characters, male and female.
Futhermore, the computer voice is created after the written sentence. So just look at the written sentence. It is correct Italian as written by a woman.
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In English, when referring to the height of a person, "basso" means not "small" but "short" (as opposed to "tall").
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The word "basso" would not be incorrect here. It would mean that a man is saying the sentence.
But in this exercise, we are given the Italian first, and the Italian happens to use "bassa".
The word "bassa" is also correct. It means that a woman is saying the sentence.
How do you know if sono is masculine or feminine first person? Is it just a guess?
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Virginia, the word "sono" is neither masculine nor feminine. Those labels apply only to nouns, pronouns, and adjectives.
The word "sono" is a verb. It is not "sono", but rather the adjective that comes after it, that tells you whether a man or a woman is saying the sentence. The word "basso" would be used by a male referring to himself, the word "bassa" by a woman referring to herself.
In this DL exercise, we are given the Italian first. The Italian happens to use "bassa". So there is no guess involved. It is a woman who is talking/writing.
If we were starting with the English "I am short", we could translate that using either "basso" or "bassa", depending on whether we assumed "I" to be a man or a woman.
