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- Topic: Italian >
- "Non ci posso credere."
51 Comments
Non lo posso credere? I cannot believe it? Non ci posso credere? I cannot believe us? I'm confused about "ci" and which pronoun group it belongs in
"Ci" here is more "a questo/quello" (I can't believe this/that): credere is mostly followed by "a" or "in", unless it supports a subordinated period. It's not a mistake to use it transitively though, "non lo posso credere" is just unusual.
I watched the video and found it is pretty good. It also gave another web address: www.iltavoloitaliano.com for more information.
Great reference. It simplifies the understanding of how to use ce and ne. It also referrences a free web site iltavoloitaliano.com
Very nice video. My only beef: however quaint, rustic and folksy, "y'all" is not correct English, not even American. You is both singular and plural in English of all flavours (or flavors :)).
Ci is used as a reference to a part of a previous sentence. See: http://www.uvm.edu/~cmazzoni/3grammatica/grammatica/ciene.html
so how many different ways can ci be expressed , I get tripped up about it a lot and it seems to be used ALOT
Is this the "missing" Italian neuter gender - "it"? ("ci" being the dative case)
Hm, I can't find any resource to support it, but it does make sense.
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then could I also translate this as "I cannot believe that" ? or is it best to try and remember this and carry a spare lingot in case I forget?
What is a 'subordinated period'? I've heard of subordinate clauses, but this is new to me. ( learned grammar a long time ago). Thanks for explaining anyway.
Apparently it is acceptable for Duo - see https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/176145
"I can't believe us" sound right to me...like in: again we are were fooled by that girl
'It' is translated as 'lo' everywhere here. If DL wants ci there should be an explanation.
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From DL tips:
“Ci” and “ne” replace prepositional phrases. “Ci” replaces “in” or “a” and their object.
So in this case in the sentence “Non posso credere a questo” you replace “a questo” with “ci” and you get:
- non ci posso credere
- non posso crederci
(both are correct)
I like your attempt to rationalise this tricky area Gil and it could be right only isn't the third person singular indirect object pronoun gli and not ci which then points us towards Bill's "missing" neuter pronoun.
(American English speaker) I'll vote with you, because "ci" is a direct object here, not an indirect object.
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It is not. "Non lo posso credere" would be acceptable. In Italian, indefinite direct and indirect objects come before the verb and after "non", or they can be attached at the end of the 2nd verb (the one in the infinitive form.
So, this could also be written as "Non posso crederlo" or "Non posso crederci".
From what DL has taught so far, it should be 'lo' -- 'ci' in this usage hasn't been explained.
Why is it not "Non ci posso credo"? I'm confused because with the infinitive form it literally translates to " to believe"...
I think it's English that is being more inconsistent here if you think about it. For example you would say "he cannot believe" not "he cannot believes". The verb "believe" is actually in the infinite form but the 'to' is just being omitted.
"The form without to is called the bare infinitive, and the form with to is called the full infinitive or to-infinitive."
