"The people look."
Translation:La gente guarda.
61 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
119
The plural / singular article looks to be the issue:
La gente = the people Le genti = the peoples La persona = the person Le persone = the people Also: Il popolo = the people / population I popoli = the peoples
So there are different ways of getting there, with certain words giving more of a sense of something or other, e.g. emphasising the group or a group of individuals, but the article rather than the noun is the stumbling block. Hope that's of use to people.
The Tips topic button on the main page gives some good examples of how to handle << la gente >. It's always singular even though it represents more than one person. You don't pluralize it. All verbs use the he/she/it conjugation (not they). Adjectives always use the singular feminine version. ... etc.
The "fill in the blank" version of the question already includes the word <> so you have to use <> because you can't pluralize gente.
I think :) If I have that wrong, I'm sure someone will correct me.
1786
"la gente guarda" was accepted 11 december 2001.
(I missed it the first time because I managed to misspell guarda.)
I had the same translation and was of course not right. So I looked into the dictionaries a little closer and I think I could make out some (slight) differences. "Il popolo" means population or folks (in German "Bevölkerung"), "la gente" means people in general, nobody in specific, more like a bulk of people. And "la persona" is the person (sing.) and means just one person and "le persone" is plural and means more than one person. So DUO's translation is, of course, OK. ;)
22
How is it that "the people" is singular, if you use la genta? There is still more than one person performing the verb, so I'd always expect the "-ano" suffix.
950
Can any one explain the difference between la genta and la persona? I keep getting it all wrong.
995
Can an Italian answer this, please? It would help to understand when "il popolo" can be the subject.
In the peculiarities of the language, 'gente' is a singular noun. It refers to the singular group, not the lot of individuals within it. That being the case, it does happen to be feminine, so it is 'la gente.' And also, being singular, the verb has to be singular too, hence 'guarda' ('guarda' being the feminine singular verb). Hope this clears it up. This is one you just have to remember, and not directly try to equate it to English. Not to confuse you, but 'le personne' is plural (referring to many people as opposed to a singular group), so it would take the plural verb 'guardano.'
3339
The government says. Because "government" is singular. PS: Remember the "n" in government. ;-)
In Britain, they would say "the Government say" (i.e. THEY say), whereas in America it is more common to say "the Government says" (IT says). Duolingo has marked many of my ENGLISH translations wrong because I used British grammar. I have reported this, but they haven't changed it, so I have had to remember to use US grammar here. :-(
1698
This translation makes it appear literally as "the people, it looks" while using guardano it is more like "the people, they look" which sounds more natural? Is popolo always singular then, even though it's describing a group?
1358
"Guarda" here is FALSE FRIEND of "Guard" in English. "Guarda" (Guardare?) here means "to look".
"To look" in this context is DIFFERENT FROM "To see" according to DL.
1229
In the opera Pagliacci the main character has a line "le gente paga e ride" so it must not be considered plural.
173
Gente is people but is always singular. La gente. The same is in Spanish. In English people is plural, the people are watching...
995
It's not. La gente is singular, so the verb would be guarda. Guardano is for plural, ex: Le persone guardano
875
Why is it a mistake to write: le gente guardano? The dictinary translates: People - gente