"Volendo, c'è anche il posto per un ospite."

Translation: If you want, there is even room for a guest.

[brandon376]

"If you wanted to" as a translation for "volendo" is tough for me to figure.

[mrule]

I imagine it as "wanting, there is even room for a guest". This doesn't translate perfectly, but you can think of "wanting" as short for "if you are wanting" i.e. "if you want".

[tikidog]

There's also one other sentence in this section where the word "volendo" is used to mean "if you want." It must be somewhat idiomatic.

http://www.duolingo.com/comment/505537

[Lodoviko]

Even though in Italian it does say "il posto," in English, it would be rendered with the indefinite article "a."

[dieuwkeH]

Why is it 'if you want', and not 'if we want' or 'if I want'?

[coloraday]

Good question!

[Munjo]

That's what I wanted to ask!

[jlco]

If you want there is even place for a guest is not English. Don't know what language that might be- Martian?

[mrule]

"if you want, there is even room for a guest"

[Andy_Dufresne]

the answer rejects "a place for a guest"

[Munjo]

"a place for a guest" is accepted now (10 Nov, 2014)

[carpelanam]

Introducing a sentence with a gerund this way is a remnant of the Latin "ablative absolute," a construction which is highly flexible. It's often best rendered into English with a temporal or other clause. It would be really hard to cover every possible variant.

[kayamel]

I put a generic "if wanted" and it was refused

[silkwarrior]

I don't see why that is not as good as the DL translation with "If YOU" - here's hoping that someone from DL will pass this way eventually.

[HaroldWonh]

"There is even room for a guest" - that part I can understand. It's how you would render "volendo" into decent English that I have trouble with. But will DL please note that "If needed to" is utter rubbish! Reported 28.2.15

[JohnDevo]

Does "c'e`anche" always mean "there is even" - can it not also mean "there is also"?

[xtrodanaire]

Wanting,translation for volendo where on earth do you fit " if you want "?

[Tash_87]

A place for "a" guest!

[Rob676803]

"if one wants" is an equivalent translation that keeps the impessoal character of "vogliendo". But my guess is that a native speaker would say something like "with good will", a better translation.

[GregHullender]

As others have said, volendo generally means "if X wants" where X will be clear from context.

I'm puzzled that il posto can mean "room". Wordreference shows posto alone with that meaning, it seem to me that this really needs to be "a place" or "a room."

Reported 2014-07-11 17:50 UTC

[silkwarrior]

But there is no context. So like others I don't see why it could not be, if THEY want or whatever.

[GregHullender]

Agreed. "If they want, there's also the guest room" seems a fine translation to me.

[Muttley_]

Why "guest room"? One one could argue that "posto" in this case could be a place at a table.

[Rizzo56]

The dictionary hints on hover are wrong or missing.

[MichaelGit4]

you keep on changing the f---ing meaning

[MichaelGit4]

you changed the bloody meaning after the first time

[LindaNordin]

How does one know who is wanting???

[Nathan740070]

So with the ending of present progressive verbs, how do you indicate if the speakers refers to you/he/them etc. like in this sentence?

[Muttley_]

The ending on the verb says nothing about the (direct/indirect) object.
If you mean the subject, the sentence is intentionally impersonal so the subject is unspecified.