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- Topic: Italian >
- "She sings softly."
"She sings softly."
Translation:Lei canta piano.
16 Comments
756
Is 'delicatamente' wrong here? Being a musician, my first instinct was to use 'piano' but, since it did not appear as any of the dictionary hints, I figured it might not be proper Italian, so used what seemed like the most reasonable of the dictionary hints instead. :(
- 36
I almost did the same thing, but then I realized Duolingo was showing us the many meanings of piano (plans, floor, softly). I guessed because it was my last translation and I had hearts to spare :)
Because delicatamente has a bit different meaning and it cant be used in this case.
Piano appears to have over 3 million different meanings. Doesnt it get confusing?
- 44
It's all related, my friend. I believe it originally meant "flat", which diversified into "plain" (i.e. not with jutting extra stuff), "soft" (i.e. not with prickly thorns), "plane" (turning it to a noun), "floor" (i.e. a level element of a building), "plan" (because paper is flat, I'd say), and "piano" (no idea there). As an adverb, it means "slowly" and "carefully", probably evolved from "plain" and "soft".
Piano can also mean "quiet", and the Italian name for the musical instrument is "pianoforte", which means "quiet and loud". The thing is, that the closest predecessor to the piano was another instrument (I can't remember its English name), which could be played with one level of loudness only, and when the piano was invented, it was "a breakthrough" in music, because loudness changes could also be a part of music now :) hope it's interesting
the compound form for sing softly is = cantare dolcemente SEE http://www.wordreference.com/iten/%20dolcemente
Lei canta dolcemente sounds more musical in my ears... - yet was marked wrong.
Why is it piano and not pianamente? Or does "piano" not have an adverb form?
