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- "Non ti sarai sentita sola?"
59 Comments
Yup, the entire section bombs in the English translation. Have already requested that DL review and correct. Problem is I don't think that's the answer. I'd like Tips and Notes giving examples of Future Perfect, and demonstrating context for these. Skip the translations - they make no sense to a native English-speaker.
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They make sense to me, but I seem to be one of the rare few who understands the future perfect tense in English, at least among users of Duolingo. And I do use it. And I do not recall ever being misunderstood. It's like the past perfect transposed to the future. I suppose it would be easier to just call it strange, crazy, and so forth, than to try to learn it. Why bother now, right? You've gotten along just fine without it.
Dear RBH: Could you give me context in English where this would make sense? Still struggling to think of when it could be used. Thanks
EdwardDunne: Here's a possible scenario: a woman's husband/lover tells her he's unhappy and is going to leave her. But he changes his mind and stays. The woman's friend asks her one evening a few months later: "But won't you have felt lonely...all of these past months, if the s.o.b had gone through with his plans to leave you?" And she might have replied:"Not in the least. Good riddance. No, I wouldn't have felt lonely at all." Think: "The Young and the Restless" or "The Bold and the Beautiful." -- ah, daytime soaps, where the future is always perfect. :-)
Thanks, G..., and I think that "won't" is properly a contraction of "will not" as in he "won't see you" not of "would not" which would be "wouldn't". I'm no linguist but I think that "wouldn't" is the proper English subjunctive, so more correct here. I note in your example that our harassed heroine replies in the subjunctive, not with "won't". ah, daytime soaps, where the future is always perfect, but the past alas is always imperfect! . :-)
Edward, when introducing the imperfect tense to my students, already way too tense just for starters, 1 or 2 would invariably ask: "If it's imperfect, why do we have to know it?" Ah, retirement :-)
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Yes, this usage is very rare for most English speakers. It would be much more common to hear "wouldn't have" (which you kind of did, in the following sentence). I think the positive is more common, e.g. "he will have broken all the pottery". The opposite would, of course, be "he won't have". I think this is a better example (if I may say so :D).
You'll be alone on your boat for the entire trip? Won't you have felt lonely by the time you get there?
I agree with redbrickhouse. The sentences themselves are grammatically speaking mostly perfectly fine, even if somewhat rare, (I've seen maybe one or two wonky ones) assuming one knows how future perfect works in English. The actual problem are indeed the awful hints that are not only useless but also misleading. Alas, this is sadly the case with the whole of Italian for English speakers course.
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Dear Empias, English is not my mother tongue. However, I think that the phrase "Won't you have felt lonely if nobody wished you a happy birthday?" is not a rare English expression. I also believe that it would have been well understood by any native English-speaker.
the sentence is grammatically perfectly fine, but almost any native speaker would prefer to use the subjunctive 'wouldn't have' instead. it doesn't come off as unnatural, but its definitely not commonplace, and is therefore a good way to get someone's attention in a formal manner, kind of. the translation works fine, and should stay as it is, but we shouldn't ignore facts for the sake of argument. one should learn both the literal one to one translation for semantics, as well as how it would probably be said in real life for practicality, from multiple sources if possible. languages are ever changing, flexible and adaptive, learners should be as well.
It does make sense. Example: "Won't you have felt lonely in a year after moving to China?" I think more common phrasing would be: "Don't you think you will feel lonely in a year after moving to China?"
I suppose one could say: By this time NEXT YEAR (since you MIGHT BE living abroad) WILL YOU NOT have felt lonely? But, I think it's a stretch. I'm assuming that Italians use this more frequently than ES. By this time next year, (If you continue on DL) won't you have learned it?
I'm assuming from the feminine endings on 'sentita' and 'sola' that the "you" being addressed is a female? Is that correct?
I might agree with all of the complaints below but for one thing...we are here to learn ITALIAN, not English. So the translations do allow English speakers to hear what an Italian would say. If you cannot understand the English translations, get out a textbook and refresh your tenses.
Janet...I see your point but behind my suggestions to stress or give preference to common, everyday English usage is the fact that, while we're using DL to learn Italian, Italians (& others) use it to improve their English, so it does them a disservice if the site accepts uncommon usage, even when technically correct.
Thanks for your input. I don't really see it as uncommon usage, but maybe if people would put the phrase "By then" before these sentences the English speakers will understand the tense better as relates to the time of the action.
Janet...Very good suggestion. On more than one occasion I've commented that it's really the idea that's important when going from Italian to English and so translations that render the meaning of the original correctly should be acceptable; I see nothing wrong with adding a qualifying phrase as you suggest if it makes that meaning clearer. Of course going from English into Italian is a different matter, since most of us can't judge with native certainty what's correct or incorrect, what's common usage, and how what we might write would strike a native Italian's ear.
My mistake. I did not mean to suggest it should literally be added to the translation. My intention was to suggest that native English speakers "think" it to themselves as a way of understanding the timing of the future perfect tense. Have a lingot on me! I see now how that may have been misconstrued. Appreciate the dialogue.
Janet, Thanks so much. Despite all of this having gotten a bit complicated, I appreciate the dialogue too -- wish there were more of it these days! Best!
"Will you've not felt lonely?" is NOT english! Oh sure, the individual words are. But together they make about as much sense as "monkey plane will dream yellow."
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The word order would be "Will you not have felt lonely?", and at an extreme stretch, it is actually correct English. It just sounds very very strange and wrong, and certainly no one would ever use the phrase. See some of the other comments, which explain why it works.
In English this does not necessarily need to be expressed as a negative, so 'Will you have felt lonely' means pretty much the same thing with only the slightest nuance of difference.
If this means the same as in portuguese "Não te terás sentido só?" I guess that the correct translation would be something like "Could it be that you had felt lonely?". I am portuguese and i am finding it difficult to understand the meaning of the DL translation to english. I wrote "Will you not have felt alone?" because I know DL accepts it but I do not understand its meaning and, moreover, it does not seem to mean the same as in italian (assuming it is similar to portuguese as I believe it is).
Has anybody got through these sections? The English translations in these verb sections are randomly impossible...
GrantPugli1: There's nothing wrong w/ the sentence. Given the proper context it'd be quite appropriate.
I understands the explanations, or maybe I don't, but who speaks like that anyway? Useless. This example provides no value to our learning, it just makes it confusing.
Query: Do italians really speak this tense?
I understand all the other tenses, but this one is scrambling my brain.
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I could not agree more. My first language is English and this is making me feel that I am new to the English language. Some of these sentences are bordering on the insane. I'm as Italian beginner not a professor.
"Won't you feel lonely?" I don't quite understand what situation would warrant the flipping of temporal direction in the middle of a sentence, though I'm not that familiar with present perfect in English either. The sentence seems to be asking if, in the future, you will have felt lonely in the past. It seems more complicated than necessary, and not very concise.
This one makes little sense in English, but assuming this is really the Conjectural Future Tense, I think it would translate to something like "Surely you haven't felt lonely?"
But why does it make little sense in English? Future Prefect could be used to express certainty about the actions and states taken place in the near past, couldn't it? (in English, I mean)
First, let me emphasize that I'm not saying that the sentence is merely awkward; I'm saying it's nonsense. It's so bad that Duo should treat it the same way they would treat a spelling error.
It's a good question as to what rules the English conjectural future follows. Outside of a mention of it in a Semantics class, I haven't seen anything written on it. I can say that this sentence has four things going against it: 1) it is not third-person 2) it is future perfect, not just future 3) it is negative 4) it is a question.
For example, "Won't he have felt lonely?" does work. I think the reason it doesn't work with "you" is that it sounds like I think you yourself don't know how you felt.
"Won't you feel lonely" is fine, but only as future tense; there's no conjecture in it.
"Will you have felt lonely?" is just as bad as "Won't you have felt lonely" so maybe the negative isn't as big a deal.
"You won't have felt lonely" is old-fashioned--no one would say that today--but it does make sense.
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It's a real shame that this commenter has decided to use his apparently otherwise excellent English to debase and discredit a part of the language which he does not understand. This seems to be his mission, as we've heard from him over and over.
"Had you not felt lonely? "
Do you understand this sentence? Do you agree that it is good English? Transpose this into the future. Or, if you prefer, go back in time before you would have said this very sentence. Here is the result.
"Won't you [Will you not] have felt lonely?"
Yes, it is a difficult concept. But that is the future perfect tense.
Actually, a much better question is what does it really mean? Does Non si sarà sentito solo mean "He must have felt lonely" or "he must not have felt lonely?"
This whole section is very difficult for me, because the English translations make no sense. I have been reading your comments for all of these and very much appreciate your help! Anyway, just wanted to say that Duo accepted Wouldn't you have felt alone?" That translation make much more sense to me, e.g. "wouldn't you have felt alone if he didn't come back for Christmas?" Cheers
non si sarai sentito? - I would expect it to mean "I am sure he has not felt lonely, what do you think?"
My logic agrees with you.
I guess I'm letting myself be bothered by the fact that "Will he have felt lonely" and "Won't he have felt lonely" mean almost the same thing in English. (The first is a question and the second is a speculation, but an answer of "yes" in both cases means the same thing.)
In other words, when you negate the English "Will he have felt lonely", you do not get the expected result. In Italian, on the other hand, if you negate Si sarà sentito solo? "I wonder if he felt lonely" I think you get something more like "I doubt that he felt lonely." (Which is what you said, of course.)
lonely is modifying the verb felt and here is an adverb. I used "alone" and it was accepted . This tense makes a little more sense , or understanding, with a dependent clause. But "Will you not have..." (instead of won't) is just damn awkward.
Answer I received was "Will not you've felt lonely"?.To me, this sounds strange. Not something I would say or anything I have heard.
Current correct answer is 'Will you've not felt lonely?' This is not a sentence.
falcieri: I have "won't you..." That said, I think that while technically it's grammatical: 'will you have not felt lonely" - contracted to 'will you've'', I have to agree with you that it sounds awfully awkward and not a phrasing a native speaker would choose. It sounds pretentious.
The offered "correct" response says "Will you haven't felt alone?" ❤❤❤? That is so wrong it hurts to re type it.
As a retired English teacher, the English translation is one that I'd never use. 'wouldn't you have ...' is the only possible correct English here, but then it would form half of a conditional sentence.
This tense rarely makes sense translated literally into English, which is what DL is doing. If you were translating Italian into English there is no way you would use the DL translations. The issue for English speakers is to understand how Italian works so that you can use this tense when speaking or writing Italian....or if you encounter this tense when translating Italian into English. This is a problem I still have starting from my English speaking mind. For this reason, and only for this reason, the literal DL sentences are useful, even if they look ridiculous in English.