9 Comments
If you want to save yourself a lot of heartache with negatives in Italian, spend the one minute it takes to read through this page
http://italian.about.com/library/fare/blfare141a.htm
Ironically, it does not address finché non ...
1239
more literally it means "they wait as long as I do not find it" where in English we would say "they wait until I find it"
Is "non" incorrectly added here? I wrote the poor sounding, "they wait until I don't find it" but was marked wrong because the answer is, "they wait until I find it."
"Finché non" is a confusing construction that does not imply a negative. The "non" is just there to trick you ;) Check this - http://duolingo.com/#/comment/345146
I understand this but how would you actually say "until i don't find it" in Italian?
I tend to think of this as "They wait unless I don't find it"- the message being that they will wait until I find it, and then they will stop waiting.
