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- Topic: Italian >
- "Chiama il dottore."
35 Comments
124
This is the imperitive "Call the doctor" For -are verbs, you sort of swap the tu and Lei so Tu chiami (familiar) or Lei chiama (formal) means "You call" In the imperitive, you swap them (tu) Chiama (Lei) Chiami so Chiama il dottore generally means "Call the doctor"
but Sebafleb asked if it could be 'the doctor calls' . I understand: if it is possible, not the general.
- 124
While you can play with word order for emphasis in Italian, I believe "The doctor calls." would most commonly be "Il dottore chiama."
My professor of Italian in college 20+ years ago told us that only medico is a physician, and dottore is used for anyone with a degree, even a bachelor's.
He's right but your professor was probably from southern Italy. Up in the north, we say "dottore" or "medico" interchangeably. Also, when you want to talk about a "dottore" as in "college degree" we say "dottore in [put the qualitication]" :) In short: you are right
Is there a difference in Italian between "medico" and "dottore?" Is there a chance you might get a Ph.D. instead of a physician? :) Viva Duolingo!
When I looked up "chiama" on Google Translate, it said "who loves". Who loves the Doctor? Uh...Whovians.
I agree - I also think that is the term that would get more English usage. "He calls the doctor" sounds a little awkward
- 250
"Chiama" - present tense - can be translated as either "he calls" or "he is calling" and actually, "he is calling the doctor" is a more natural English translation than "he calls the doctor."
- 250
Again, "he is calling the doctor" is a more natural and typical translation. Coincidentally, in this same lesson, the very next item / question is "Il contadino legge il giornale.", which I translated as 'The farmer is reading the newspaper.", and my answer was marked Correct. How is "legge il giornale" any different from "chiama il dottore"?!
That was 20 years ago. Today the reality is differt. I think the title dottore is protectet one
when i click on "chiama" to see the translation, it doesn't tell me the translation is shows a weird small picture underneath, same thing on my phone and computer
The reason it could not be he is calling the doctor is because it is chiama and not chiamata
- 250
"Chiamata"? I think you must mean "chiamate", which is 2nd person plural, and would be "you (plural) call the doctor". "Chiama" is 3rd person singular: "he / she calls" The right translation is "he is calling the doctor"
The audio is not good. It is not clear if she is saying "chiamo" or "chiama". I face the same issue in many tests of Duolingo.
- 124
"Il dottore" is a male doctor. Traditionally, a female doctor is "la dottoressa." There has been movement to call women doctors "dottore", but I would think they would still use "la" as in la dottore. It's common for words that can refer to either gender to use the correct article to indicate gender. For example, a software programmer is a softwarista. It can be both masculine and feminine so you would say il softwarista or la softwarista to indicate the gender of the programmer. A Milan (soccer) supporter is a milanista. Could be "il milanista" or "la milanista" depending on the gender of the fan.
I understand the question to mean 'why is it "he calls" and not "she calls"?'.
The answer to that question has nothing to do with whether it's a male doctor or a female doctor.
"Chiama" can mean any of "he", "she", or indeed, formal "you", and all of those possibilities are accepted. It just happens that the "he" sentence is the top of the list of accepted answers, and therefore shown first.
- 124
Sorry. I wasn't really looking at the sentance. It can be he or she, and if they haven't given any other information, both should be accepted. It would not be the formal You because it doesn't have Lei. It could be the imperative you, i.e. in English "Call the doctor" The second person imperative of chiamare is chiama.
