"Then I think that I started laughing."
Translation:Poi penso che io mi sia messa a ridere.
19 Comments
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Oh man, this sentence is so messed up. It's really annoying.
"Penso che ho iniziato a ridere" is uneducated Italian, you may here it quite often, but it should be "penso che (io) abbia iniziato a ridere". All the same, no one really says the latter, which also sounds terrible, because the subject of the main clause is the same as the subordinate clause.
In a word, "Penso [di aver iniziato a ridere//di essermi messo/a a ridere]" is the most common and thus correct solution - but it's marked as wrong. Hope they solve it! (14/07/2014)
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Well said. One of the first rules I was taught regarding the subjunctive was that it is not used if the subject in both clauses is the same.
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Italian is my mother tongue, so I think the correct alternatives should be 1. Poi penso di aver iniziato a ridere» or «Poi penso di essermi messa a ridere» (these are the most commonly used forms). 2. Poi penso che mi sia messa a ridere (less common, but still used). 3. Poi penso che io abbia iniziato a ridere (even less common, but still valid).
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Delightful! Thank you! "mi sia messa a ridere" = I have put myself to laugh = I started to laugh
il capitolo ci chiede il condizionale.
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The first solution is in the passato prossimo, not the subjunctive at all, as it should be. The second solution is in the feminine, 'mi sia messa' -the masculine should be accepted.
I agree...the same subject (in this case I) in both the independrnt and dependent clauses requires use of "penso di aver cominciato a ridere.".! 6/26/14
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It's the congiuntivo passato of mettersi, applied to the set phrase mettersi a piangere/ridere, to start to cry/laugh. See part 3a of the Collins tab at WordReference: http://www.wordreference.com/iten/mettersi.
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I think that, if DL is going to include idiomatic phrases, then the hints on hover should, at the very least, give correct clues.
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DL gives as a correct solution 'Poi penso che io inizia a ridere.' However, I do not understand 'inizia'. What form of iniziare is 'inizia'? See http://www.wordreference.com/conj/ITverbs.aspx?v=inizia
It just bothers me that every other sentence in this lesson uses the perfect subjunctive and all of a sudden they don't accept "che io abbia comminciato a ridere"
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Italian distinguishes between iniziare and cominciare. I've run into the same problem in other sentences.
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English also distinguishes between initiate and commence. One should hope the distinctions are rather similar, as, apparently, they have common origins. In English 'commence' is action intrinsic to a subject, i.e. 'the work commences on Monday'. For a person, the meaning of commence is more commonly conveyed with begin, i.e. 'I begin laughing every time I hear this story'. On the other hand, initiate appears to associate with an extrinsic action, e.g. 'by pressing the button they initiate the procedure', etc. Finally, there is also 'start', which covers both meanings.
While, semantically, I feel cominciare should convey the meaning of 'started laughing' or 'began laughing', my answer 'allora penso che abbia iniziato a ridere' was accepted! Go figure.
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Kind of like argomento = discussion, and discutere = to argue. Go figure. Language calisthenics.
