"Prenotiamo la nostra stanza il prima possibile."
Translation:We reserve our room as soon as possible.
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1076
Good advice indeed, but I wish duo would provide a list of the more idiomatic phrases for reference. Italian seems to have a lot of them
Pulled this from another post.
Nouns ending in "-ma" in the singular and"i" in the plural, e.g. "il problema" / "i problemi": most nouns in this class are masculine.
To explain the exception: Many nouns ending in -ema, -ama, -g(h)ema, -gama, are of Greek origin and are considered foreign loan words. Foreign words in Italian are always considered masculine (despite ending in "-a" in this case). Thus, they take the masculine plural of "-i."
il cinema (cinema/ the movies [Am English]); il dramma (drama); l' idioma (idiom, language); gli idiomi; il problema (problem); il proclama (proclamation)
Here are the 20 most common words:
http://www.italymagazine.com/news/italian-language-masculine-words-ending-ma
This does NOT make it a rule for all words ending in "-ma", just those of Greek origin. There are Italian words ending in "-ma" that are feminine:
la mama; la cima (top, summit, peak).
Hope that helps.
3024
il problema, il diploma - are two examples that goes with this rule. (And this is a sentence in the Italian course)
3024
Point taken, not a rule, but when a word ends in -ma it is time to 'think' and try to remember which one it is. :-)
You are correct; that's not how it is done here. "Appena" as an adverb means "just" or "barely".
- Siamo appena partiti = "We have just left"
If you use it as a conjunction, then it does mean "as soon as".
- I will play outside as soon as I'm finished with my homework."
There are no clauses to join with a conjunction in the original sentence of this discussion.
Apparently it's a well-known phrase in Italy, "il prima possibile".
In the first context you gave, is it equivalent to "acabar de" in Spanish, or "venir de" in French?
When counting ordinals (1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.), you begin:
- Primo, Secondo, Terzo...
Thus, the word primo as an adjective means first, with masculine and indeterminate nouns, so prima means first with feminine nouns ("la prima stanza" = the first room), and I think that it is only used with "la" in that way; an adjective, in comparisons or rankings.
Prima as an adverb, on the other hand, means either "sooner" or "before". More telling, it also means "beforehand" or "in advance".
Most times you will not need the article "il", at all, when used this way. As already mentioned in this discussion, this sentence is idiomatic.
There are other idioms that use it, but without the article:
Prima o poi = "Sooner or later".
Pensa prima di parlare* = "Think before you speak".
I might want to say we will reserve our room as soon as possbile or we ought to reserve our room as soon as possble or we are going to reserve our room as soon as possible. But we reserve our room as soon as possible is not something that I can see any purpose in ever saying. So I think that the present tense Italian can be used to indicate future time?
24
my italian teachers told us that the future tense is rarely used. i.e. domani vado alla scuola tomorrow i go to school. Future would only be used for events a long way in the future, like next Christmas I am going home.
Maybe we might remember the song "Che sera, sera" from 1950's Hitchcock movie? What will be will be.
Also I bought a bag of "Popcorn"--yes that was the name on the bag. It said, " Fara crich o Fara croch"---will it go crick or will it go crock. And that popcorn bag was my only encounter with Italian future tense while I had my sojourn in Rome. ( There were accent marks over the a endings. I cannot type them.)
The present continuous is fine. Sitting at the computer someone asks what are you doing and I say I am reserving our rooms.
There is a use for the present however. It can refer to habitual actions: we reserve our rooms as soon as possible - because otherwise they will be all booked, perhaps.
Is the Italian sentence talking about habitual actions or does it indicate present time?
Can you not use the present for the near future? "We'll reserve our room as soon as possible." wasn't accepted.
764
"We book our room" which is more natural English, is, I pleased to say, OK with DL. Wonders will never cease!