"Da dove vengono?"
Translation:Where do they come from?
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I had successfully drubbed that song from my brain until today. I rue my choice to look at the comments for this sentence.
Vincenzo is correct....da dove vieni = where are you from......in the sense of asking your previous location....answer .....Vengo da Roma .
Di dove sei ......where are you from......in the sense of asking where you were born/grew up.......Answer....Sono di Roma ...I am from Rome /was born/ spent my childhood in Rome.
I was about to ask the same question. Maybe this is only "where do they come from" in the immediate sense - that is "where are they from" could be asking about their nationality, for example, whereas, "where are they coming from" would be asking where they were immediately before here.
i am totally speculating, though. :/
found this explanation: "Another way of looking at it: di dove ( + verb essere) asks for the provenance of a person (or an object, less common) that is, a characteristic; da dove (+ verb of motion) asks for the origin of a motion that person or object performed. The nuance is subtle but important."
What about "From whence do they come?" I can see why they wouldn't require that, but it's not wrong, is it?
"Whence" already contains the idea of "from", so it is actually wrong to say that, even though "whence" is a great word. "From where..." or "Whence..." is what you want. And if you use "whence" you want to stick "sire" in there somewhere too.
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It is correct, but extremely old-fashioned. No one would speak that way, unless they were deliberately trying to sound archaic.