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- Topic: Italian >
- "The people look."
"The people look."
Translation:Le persone guardano.
50 Comments
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.
Are you an official tutor with Duolingo? maybe some explanation beforehand would be helpful. I decided to give up to days ago as I feel I am not getting what I want out of this but with nothing better to do for the next few weeks, I thought I'd give it another go as I've nothing to lose.
309
Why is 'i popoli guardano' incorrect? I sense there must be a difference between popoli and persone and gente, but I don't know what that would be.
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. ;)
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.
Collective nouns conjugate differently in the two languages; in English "look" is conjugated by meaning, and it's plural because more people are looking, while in Italian "guarda" is conjugated grammatically, because "la gente" is singular, regardless of meaning.
It must be like "The group" or "The crowd' in english, which is the same as he/she. He looks, the group looks, etc.
- 351
Can any one explain the difference between la genta and la persona? I keep getting it all wrong.
Seeing and looking are two different things; you see just by opening your eyes, but you need intent to look/watch. So "la gente vede" is "the people see" while "la gente guarda" is "the people look" or "the people watch."
So, 'le gente guardano' is not acceptable. Le gente being a singular group of people, so we are not referring to many groups of people or peoples. So, someone needs to explain why my answer was unacceptable when 'le persone' was.
- 309
Because 'gente' and 'persone' are different words. A peculiarity of the Italian language is that 'gente' refers to a singular group of people but 'persone' refers to multiple people, hence it is plural.
Since 'la gente' is technically singular 'guardare' is conjugated as as 'guarda'
- 309
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.'
In English there is contention about the form of the verb following collective nouns. Some would say "The Goverment say...." others "The Goverment says....." I don't know which is strictly correct.
- 2611
The government says. Because "government" is singular. PS: Remember the "n" in government. ;-)
- 1831
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. :-(
- 969
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?
- 620
"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.
How about "la gente cerca" since we don’t know what the 'looking' is about. Thanks
- 309
I'm not sure that would work. I think 'cercare' means 'to look for' whereas 'guardare' means 'to look.'
- 263
Can an Italian answer this, please? It would help to understand when "il popolo" can be the subject.
You should allow for synonyms: gente and person are both people!
The people was earlier translated as " i popoli" by Duo. Now it is wrong? I always wonder if they know what they are going. It is confusing us all the time, everyday.
- 493
In the opera Pagliacci the main character has a line "le gente paga e ride" so it must not be considered plural.
Gente is people but is always singular. La gente. The same is in Spanish. In English people is plural, the people are watching...
