- Forum >
- Topic: Italian >
- "Sono bassa."
41 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.
I think I didn't understand your comment. Isn't exactly that what this sentence is doing?
- 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?
512
The female version "bassa" should be spoken by a female person. Otherwise it's irritating.
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.
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.
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.
How do you know if sono is masculine or feminine first person? Is it just a guess?
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.
Same question here: why couldn't 'Sono bassa' translate to 'I am low'. For example, being high or low on a mountain?
- 170
i don't understand why Duo marks: i am small as wrong ???
as far as i know, brits would hardly say: i am short, rather small !!
Because "bassa" doesn't mean "small"; it means "short"; small and short are not the same in English, nor are they in Italian (in the Italian versions of the English)' and sorry English would and do say short if that is what they are. Napoleon was short. Who would say he was "small"?
So if sono basso is masc and sono bassa is feminin. They should not give a wrong to sono bassa, because we do not know who is short her or him, no?
If the person is saying "sono bassa" it is because she is identifying as female. And yes we do know it is her because she just made the statement. Is there another conclusion here that makes any logical sense? I don't think so.
