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- "Perché mi stai tenendo la ma…
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In Italian (and Spanish), one doesn't usually use the possessive with body parts. This might seem odd, but we sometimes do it in English as well, often as parts of figurative expressions . For example You're a pain in the neck, He's got football on the brain, I took it on the chin, or some other less polite expressions.
I guess you could say so if you take 'mi' out and if you want to say (maybe in a kid's game) why you always hold my hand take some one else's instead. But if you are on starting a love story, you better use the sentence as here, asking 'why are you doing that 'hand holding activity' to me?'.
haha, in general i'm too lazy to write the accents. :P but the amavo is a stupid mistake so edited :'( I should exercise even more...
"Tenere" refers to the act of holding someone's hand. You would use the word "prendere" for the act of taking or grabbing someone's hand.
'take one's hand' has a different meaning - usually in marriage ceremony or vow
Not so. When I am crossing a street with my young child, I will tell him to "take my hand", but I'm not telling him to marry me.
toutou - you are addressing a question of English usage there, not whether my translation is valid. And although the English usage you quote is real, it's not the only one - there is a more general one.
Most famously in this.Not a marriage proposal.
Thank you, silkwarrior.... an ol' favourite of mine.... and, ach, so valid!
I know this comment was made quite some time ago, but it's a good question. What you are suggesting, would actually look like this in Italian: "Perché mi stai tendendo la mano?" Mark the extra letter d in the middle of the verb. So yes, it looks very similar, but there are actually two different verbs involved: tenere (to hold) and tendere (to stretch/hold out) ;)
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The point is that "holding" and "holding out" are different actions. Are the both correct translations of tenendo?
"to hold out" has several meanings:
- to offer. Ex: When I said hello to them, they held out their hands in greeting.
- to last. Ex: Will the food hold out?
- to refuse to give in. Ex: We are holding out for higher wages.
- to withhold something expected or due. Ex: You'd better not be holding out on me.
- in the idiomatic expression "to hold out hope" (= to maintain hope)
AFAIK "hold out" can only be translated to "tenere" if it has the last meaning: tenere la esperanza.
"porgere" (= ofrire tendendo) is a more accurate translation of this transitive usage of "to hold out".
What about "why are you holding the hand?" How do we know it's "my hand"?
What about the word 'mi' in the sentence... It can only be my hand.
Understand lack of mia possessive with body parts. but this is : Why are you holding me (IO) the hand. So , it becomes my hand . What if visitors expressed la mia mano? possessive personal pronoun always takes the article. So why is "mi" used here? stare + gerund is action right now.
tenere is holding tendere is stretch, pull, reach.
Colbymenning: 'Mia la mano' would mean "my the hand" - you'd have 2 modifiers for 'hand.'
So this would mean "holding me by the hand"? I don't understand the sentence structure
Annalinda: Maybe it'd help to think of it as "holding something for someone" e.g., "Why are you holding this door open for me?" In DL's example what's being held is the hand, and the someone for whom it's being held is the "me." You're dealing with a direct object (the hand) and an indirect object (me).
I don't know if this is grammatically correct, but I think of it as if "mi" and "la mano" are both the direct object of the verb, which "la mano" specifying exactly which part of "mi" is being held.
This is a good way of wrapping your head around it, but "mi" here is an indirect object (you can't have two direct objects). It works like this: you are holding the hand (the thing affected directly by the action) and this action indirectly affects me as a whole (indirect object).
sbeecroft: if it's helpful for you to think of it that way, fine, but grammatically "mi" is the indirect object. The hand is what's being held. See my comment to Annalinda below.
lucaturilli: the 'my hand' part is conveyed by 'la mana'. Italian doesn't use possessives with parts of the body. The "mi" conveys the idea of "to me". So think of it as: "why are you holding your hand to me." Awkward to translate it this way, but that's the idea I believe.
The noblesunfish has explained it clearly enough. German too by the way also omits the possessives with parts of the body.
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ok smartypants, why don't you look at the date that noblesunfish answered Lynnich's query, and then my query? I asked the question 3 months ago and he answered it one month ago!!! I am not psychic, despite wishing I was :-)))))
Hey, KiwiGuy: I was never good with dates -- goes back to middle school! Years of therapy haven't helped. And secondly, it's bad manners to look at someone else's dates - it'll lead to either a broken friendship or a broken nose.
The "correct" translation given to me by Duo was "why you are holding my hand?" Is this a computer error? Did they intend "why are you....etc..? I hope so.
Not sure why that was in the system as an alternate translation. It's fixed now!
This explanation from above seems the best solution to me.,
dieprinzessin 25 18 12 11 10 9 9 6 2 2 I guess you could say so if you take 'mi' out and if you want to say (maybe in a kid's game) why you always hold my hand take some one else's instead. But if you are on starting a love story, you better use the sentence as here, asking 'why are you doing that 'hand holding activity' to me?'.
"Mi" before the verb usually means "to me", so 'Why are you hand holding with/to me' kinda makes sense
Italian often uses direct object pronouns ("mi" in this sentence) instead of possessive pronouns with body parts, as explained in previous comments. Please read them before posting.
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Despite what alanvoe says, I don't think your question has been adressed before. I do not know the answer, but I wonder if you might use one of the adjectives "questa/quella mano" instead of the article "la".
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Why use the gerund here?! As if someone is constantly taking the other one's hand, like in a nightmarish film! Perhaps it's okay in English, but in other languages it sounds dark and surrealistic. Duo must be an Anglosaxon bird.
I'm not sure what other languages you're talking about. The gerund is usual in this context in English, Italian (the relevant languages in this Italian course for English speakers), Spanish and Portuguese.
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I think this has already been addressed in the answers to Annalinda13 and lucaturilli. Was there something in those answers you didn't understand?
you are wrong, with body parts, the possessive is not used and this is actually how Italian expresses "my hand"
