"What is the date of your birthday?"
Translation:Qual è la data del tuo compleanno?
33 Comments
Italian uses "quale" in many instances where English would use "what" or "how"; I still haven't found the best way to explain this, but the assumption here is that there are several dates, and I know what they are, but I don't know which one is associated to your birthday. Using "Che è", "Che cos'è" or "Cos'è" here would ask what that thing means or what's its nature, and it'd be nonsense.
"Quantify" and "Qualify" are words that comes to mind. These are used generally, sometimes rather loosely, to to be more specific as well as to establish numerals. A translation of the above could be "Qualify your date of birth" or even "Quantify your date of birth" (I would take a bet that the derivation of the Italian and English words are similar as well!)
Thanks for your comment! It makes a lot more sense to me now. Am I right if I conclude from your answer that: - when used to refer to a 'thing', wich is defined (like 'what's that', when you know where you are talking about), you use 'che' - 'quale' is used when it isn't clear what object we are talking about (when you're asking for a date like a birthday).
Hasn't 'quale' been translated as 'which' before? So it'd be like "which date is your birthday"
That's how I do it. If you could replace it with "which", instead of what, then I think "quale" is usually better. So you use "quale" when there's a selection of different possibilities (such as different dates it could be), and "cosa" when you're asking what something is, or what the nature of something is (eg What is that? It's a turtle). Can a native speaker please verify this?
I think what you are saying really is that "what is the date .." in Italian is substituting the word "what" for the word "which" before translating the sentence. "what ( = "which of all possible dates") is your birthday", so you must use quale.
From what I understand Quale can be used to ask for precise information about people or things.
Why not "qual'è"? (This was accepted for me but I am curios about why qual è is the preferred translation.
The reason is the same as for the masculine indeterminate article "uno" being truncated to un instead of elided to un' like its femine counterpart: if the truncated form exists, it must be used where applicable. The truncated form "qual" used to be very common, but nowadays it only survives in some very limited contexts, "qual è", "qual era" and a few idioms like "qual buon vento [ti porta]" (what auspicious wind [brings you here], i.e. to what do I owe the pleasure of your visit).
Incidentally, writing "qual'è" is considered one of the worst mistakes in school, and yet the percentage of native Italian speakers making the mistake is astonishing, including famous writers. We were kind of getting tired of explaining Italian to Italians, and that's the main reason why "qual'è" is now accepted as a typo.
Why doesn't the same thing apply to dov'è and cos'è? I'm just curious to know.
In those cases there is no truncated form, i.e. cos and dov don't exist; elision (indicated by the apostrophe) only happens when followed by a word starting with a vowel, while truncation is just the shortening of a word, and it could happen for any reason. Notably "un cane" and "qual buon vento" are followed by a consonant (so they couldn't be elided anyway), and words like "amor" (from amore) and "castel" (from castello) could even be used at the end of a sentence (mainly in poetry though).
Not sure why this should be "del tuo compleanno" rather than "di tuo compleanno". Any ideas?
"Di tuo compleanno" would sound like a caveman talking :) it pretty simple, "of your birthday" is "di il tuo compleanno", and di+il always contracts to DEL :)
Just because i did not put the accent on e, they said it was wrong. They should not accept, then, when we put the same
967
It's more than a misspelling, è and e are two different words, that's why they didn't accept it.
ok, but if they didn't accept it, they should never accept it. not when they want they accept it, and when they don't want, they don't accept it. I usually don't use it with accent and they're just telling me :be patient to the accents". Ok. but don't allow it, if it's wrong.
It's because in some sentences, the "e" withoud the accent, can be considered a simple typing error, but in other sentences, it can have sense withoud the accent but it's not the right translation. I hope that I explained.. ._.
I still don't understand why it's "del" and not "di".
"Del tuo compleanno" would be literally translated as "of the (di + il) your birthday", and I know that direct translations are a somewhat a waste of time, but what I'm asking is this: what is the context here that requires the use of "the" (the "il" in "del")?
From f.formica above:
Italian uses "quale" in many instances where English would use "what" or "how"; I still haven't found the best way to explain this, but the assumption here is that there are several dates, and I know what they are, but I don't know which one is associated to your birthday. Using "Che è", "Che cos'è" or "Cos'è" here would ask what that thing means or what's its nature, and it'd be nonsense.
