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- "My toy does not break."
"My toy does not break."
Translation:Il mio giocattolo non si rompe.
34 Comments
If 'to break' in this case is reflexive why can't DL indicate that in the hints instead of just "rompe"? Wouldn't it be more helpful to list the verb as "rompersi"? Hints are useless and counterproductive if they're not helpful.
I've noticed a lot more things are reflexive in Italian than they are in English.
With some exceptions made for singular family members, the possessive usually takes an article.
If DL's going to provide a clue for "breaks" why can't it at least include a note that it's reflexive?
Mimoking: The verb can be used transitively (w/ an object) as in "We broke the window" or intransitively (w/o an object), in which case it's reflexive in Italian: "It broke". That's the case here.
It may be a typo, but if you meant to type "no" then it's incorrect since it must be "non".
How does a toy break itself? A toy gets broken only if someone, or something, breaks it :o
Gotenks33. Reflexive verbs don't always mean that the subject is intentionally doing the action to itself. German & Italian simply use reflexives as alternatives to the passive voice or to an active sentence with the indefinite subject "one". "The window is (being) opened"/"One opens the window"/"The window opens itself" -- which of course it doesn't literally speaking, it's just how certain languages express this idea. German: Das Fenster wird geöffnet / Man öffnet das Fenster / Das Fenster öffnet sich. Foreign language structures don't always translate literally or word for word into another language.
Okay! We si is reflexive, but what does the word si mean. Thank you, in advance.
300
There has to be an subject and an object in a sentence. "I (subject) hit (action) the wall (object)" "I hit" seems to be missing the object "I hit the wall" sounds better (we talking about Italian sentences) so, "the toy breaks", "the ice breaks" these do not mean much in Italian "The toy breaks (but what it breaks? your heart? a kid's arm? NO, it breaks ITSELF (same with that "ice" sentence), so "si" means kind of that "itself") "Il mio giocattolo (subject) non si (object) rompe (action)" "Il ghiaccio (ice) si (itself) rompe (breaks)" I hope it helps
the correct answer keeps changing from rompe to rompano each time I change my anwer!! ??
Man, will I ever get this reflexive stuff? And if I don't, will it make a difference when I visit Italy on vacation?
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Not true. In fact the hardest thing is to memorize (or know) WHEN a verb is reflexive. It is not always self-evident to an English speaker.
- 300
I don’t know about you but you can’t memorize all reflexive verbs ( I mean you can but that would be hard and unproductive)
If the verb ends with -si it’s probably a reflexive one.
Plus use some common sense, I do not have much trouble to recognize a reflexive verb and I’m not proficient in Italian.
The list I wrote gives you at least 70% of accuracy when it comes to conjugation of those verbs. The rest is some practice and to be honest not that much as it is not the hardest part of Italian grammar.
