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- "Né leggo né scrivo."
109 Comments
Interestingly, it gave me credit for a correct answer (though admonished me for missing the accents) when I wrote "net leggo net scrivo".
I did too haha, says I made a 'typo'. This is exactly what I heard, though.
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I put Ned, Ned, I still got credit but was corrected for Ne instead. I heard it in the standard speed and typed it out and then I was like let me check again, I listened at normal speed again and hear Ne, but the slower pronunciation was Ned.
why does this construction not have the word "non" when all of the others have non as well as the two nes?
If the negative word (né) comes before the verb (as in this case), it replaces the "non." If it comes after (for example, "Non scrivo né lettere né cartoline"), you need the "non" before the verb to mark the sentence as negative.
Think of "nè" as the equivalent of "neither" and "non" as simply "not" and maybe it will make more sense. "I neither read nor write." Meanwhile, "Non leggo e non scrivo." (at least I think that's correct, any constructive criticism is welcome)
It's common in many languages to use a construction such as "né X né Y" to mean "neither X nor Y", which is slightly different from "not X not Y".
Think of né as the "nor" in english. e.g: "I do not drink beer nor wine". :)
Only if you put a negative elsewhere in the sentence, e.g. I don't read or write. You can put double negatives in Italian but not in English so in a sentence like 'Non voglio né tè né caffè' there are two ways to translate it: 1) I want neither tea nor coffee 2) I don't want either tea or coffee. (P.S. Italian speakers, please correct the sentence above if it's wrong!)
I put "I don't read or write" and it was marked wrong. I know the more formally correct answer would be to use neither/nor, but modern English uses neither/nor as well as either/or so it should be right.
Obviously your sentence is right and means pretty much the same thing, but I guess it's not an exact translation and since they're trying to teach you either/or and neither/nor here, I guess that's why they really want you to translate it that way. It's irritating but i can see their point!
I think that Italian can also put it in more than one way. They did accept "I do not read nor write." I think the "nor" is a core ingredient to this particular sentence lesson. "I do not read or write." would be "Io non leggo o scrivo."
Because it's a double connotation, "né/né" said twice means "neither/nor" but if you said "né/o" that would be "nor/or" [I.e: "I am nor a cat or a dog" is said incorrectly in English as it would be said "I am neither a cat nor a dog"--same applies to Italian but using "né/né" .]
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you are right and you should report it... after a while they notice. use the report button
...except for that the system tells me it's wrong if I say " I don't read or write"... (I believe in today's English that would be acceptable, although grammatically probably not proper)
Interesting that because we are learning in duolingo, we will never need to utter this sentence for real! Thank you duoLingo!
Do not use the word "never." Perhaps on your visit to Italy, you join a play. It is about an illiterate man becoming a teacher. If that does happen, you better hope you were paying attention! Also, you could correct someone who did not say this sentence right! Think positive, my friend! Prego!
No, no. You missed my meaning completely (I don't mind some of the more abstract sentences in duo ... they make it fun and I still learn the words). I meant to impart a compliment to duoLingo because now I can speak and read Italian! Let's celebrate! :-)
I know right. I was just lying by reading and writing that i could do neither.
I love "né ... né ..." because its usage is absolutely same in Turkish, my native language.
"Né leggo né scrivo" -> "Ne okurum, ne yazarım" ;)
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Although the general meaning is the same I think here they are really trying to teach us the 'neither...nor' construction.
It's a peculiarity of English (US) that we say either 'I don't read or write' or 'I neither read nor write'. Nobody says 'I don't read nor write' colloquially. I never thought about that before, but the informality of the contraction carries over to the preposition.
I heard "ned". But having a modest background in linguistics, I wonder if the [t] or [d] that English speakers might think we hear is a phenomenon that also occurs in English. That is, when we say "cat" or "bat" we are not actually saying the [t], but we hear the [t] (a final 'stop': an 'unreleased' stop I think, you can look it up if interested)-- our brains fill the [t] in because we know the sound is "supposed" to be there. Anyway, the words we have in English that start with NEH are ned and net -- so I guess we need to be wary of our brains filling in sounds for us in other languages.
I neither read nor write - the do is an extra verb that doesn't make sense there
Unless someone just said you couldn't and you needed to emphasize that YES, I can. Normally, you would not add the "do".
I do now understand when ne means neither...nor or when it means either...or. Can anyone help me? Thank you! Raquel
Né is always negative. If you were to say: "I neither read nor write." Or "I do not either read or write." , they are both proper sentances. They mean the same thing even though one says "either...or" and the other says "neither...nor". Né would never mean "I either read or write." It must always be negative. Hope this helps:-D.
the english translation is incorrect english grammar. One does not say "I do not read nor write." One either says II neither read nor write" or one says "I do not read or write."
in texas thats exactly how we say it, but our sentences are broken in sections when we speak so we actually say "i do not read,....NOR write"
While I do not mean to be disrespectful to Texas, I would suggest that the way the English language is spoken in the vernacular there is hardly a litmus test for correct English grammar.
thats the point though, no one actually speaks english anymore, it changes constantly even if most of those changes are temporary, some stick, you cant say incorrect english, as long as its understood its english.
And the reason that you say that in Texas - or in any other native English-speaking land - is that "...nor write" is actually an incomplete clause which has within it "do I", so that it looks like this when complete: "I do not read, nor do I write." That is not a double negative, because each clause has a single negative in it.
I'm not a native English speaker so I'm not sure, but isn't neither-nor a redundancy? in French and Spanish we consider those double negatives as the correct form, but I thought it was wrong in English. Shouldn't it be "I can neither read or write" or "I can't read or write"? Is "nor" the preferred term?
This is special because neither and nor only negate one item each, if there are more items, you will have to continue to provide more "nor" for each more item. This form is especially used for listed items. I like neither fish, nor chicken, nor vegetables, nor meat. I like either ice cream or cookies or cake. I neither swim nor ride bicycles nor run, so I guess I won't be doing the triathlon.
Also, if you use "not" you will negate the entire sentence and then you could use "either ...or" with your list and the items would still be negated. I do not like either fish or clams. "either..or..." can be used with "not".
"neither...nor..." is considered a single negative for lists.
To top it off, "Neither" can be used alone, in a second negative statement answering some else's. "One person says "I don't like that." Other person says "Neither do I." showing that they have a similar dislike.
"Nor" can be used to start a second negative clause. "I don't like the way he did that, nor do I appreciate the way he pretended that it didn't matter." In retrospect, the person could say "I neither liked the way he did that nor the way he pretended that it didn't matter.", but when speaking on the fly he may have come up with the first thought and then added the second and it is perfectly correct to do so. http://robin.hubpages.com/hub/Grammar_Mishaps__Neither-Nor_and_Either-Or
Got it! Thanks. It is similar in Spanish, where you have the form "No leo ni escribo" Where "no" only negates the first term, and then "ni" is a contraction of "y no" (and I don't/and it is not"/etc.) so the literal translation could look like I don't read and I don't write and I don't... Anyway, now it makes sense.
I am a native English speaker with a pretty fair knowledge of English grammar. The one place where a double negative is allowed is in the neither_nor combination. The rule is neither_ nor_ or you may say either_ or_. You never say neither_ or (or for that matter either_nor).
Why do both the (né)s have the same accent in the printed answer, but in both the fast and the slow playback the first one sounds longer than the second? It's sounds like the first one has a grave accent and the second one does not ( if I understand the terminology correctly)
Has it been corrected, because it sounds fine to me. Here is an alternate site to listen to pronunciation: http://www.forvo.com/search-it/n%c3%a9%20n%c3%a9/
The "Né" sound sounds like "net" or "ned", especially when played slowly - just me?
It sounds correct to me, perhaps it has been fixed. Also you can listen to this site for pronunciation: http://www.forvo.com/search-it/n%c3%a9%20n%c3%a9/
It sounds like she is saying "ned" or "net". I must have listened to bothe fast and slow pronunciation a dozen times. It drove me nuts!
Could someone explain to me the correct usage of the accents on the letter "e"? I always get them wrong!
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Accent acute: né, sé (da sé = hiself): open pronunciation Accent serious (grave in italian): è (verbo essere), caffè, bebè or farò, potrò. Closed pronunciation. Only on the last vocal (not like French !). The difference is very small (many italians do not know this, so don't worry !). If the final vocal is a, i, u, only accent serious (grave) : libertà
Why are some accents è and others é (the different directions of the accent mark)?
I almost typed "ni" due to my bilingual status and I had to listen to it 3 times to get it right. Honestly, I am getting so many Italian words mixed with Spanish ones.
What it said vs what I heard:
- Né leggo né scrivo
- Nelle gonne scrivo
Quite similar:
- Né......le.......ggo.......né.........scrivo
- Ne......lle......go......... nne......scrivo
The sounds are similar, but the stress is different:
Né leggo né scrivo: ne-LEG-go-ne-SCRI-vo
Nelle gonne scrivo: NEL-le-GON-ne-SCRI-vo.
I wrote "Neither do I read nor do I write" but it did not accept. Don't know why
Can someone explain why there is "non" anymore here in this sentence . As in the previous one ie. " it is neither tea nor black coffee " and the right Italian translation was "non è né tè né Caffè Nero". Why in these sentences rule is different. ? PLEASE someone explain.
Yes, I thought it was Ned as well but decided to put ne. E sometimes sounds like ed as well
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The female voice says in the turtle mode: Ned ..... ned... instead of "né" and how I see in the other comments, she says that since three years without any improvement. It is a little bit long for a mistake. I have reported it once again.
Still do not know why sometime we need Io etc in front of our sentence and sometimes not. Please what are the rules
I'm assuming you're referring to the first person pronoun? I think in general its not necessary as the verb conjugation will already give the information that it is first person. Beyond this it is mostly used for emphasis. For example if you were traveling with an Italian native and a shopkeeper referred to both of you as Italians you could respond ''IO non sono italiano''.
This is obviously not exhaustive as there are many uses for Io, but for beginners and for the usage before a verb, it's generally just emphatic.
Why isn't there a 'non' in this? I'm sure non has been used in other examples of neither, nor.
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Please an explanation: why was it NON mangiamo NE pollo NE pesce, that is with twoo Ne scrivo with only one negation? negations, but NE keg
I dont tead nor write Same thing too strict with everything as if their English was perfect
I'm confused...if 'nè...nè' is 'neither...nor' then why do they use 'non' to negate the already negated sentences?
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Hm — in "Non è né tè né caffè nero" the "Non" was compulsory. Here it is left our. Why the difference?
It depends on where you are placing the negative word ("né" here). If it is before the verb, you don't need "non," but if it is after, you need it. The same applies to other negative words, like "nessuno" or "mai."
Non ho né caffè né caffè. ("Né" is after the verb "ho.")
Né parlo né gioco. ("Né" is before the verb "parlo.")
Nessuno è qui. ("Nessuno" is before the verb "è.")
Non c'è nessuno. ("Nessuno" is after the verb "è.")
I'm going to reason that those sentences are also very different in English; in your first, "There isn't any tea or black coffee," you need the "non" to modify the verb: "there is NOT...". In the exercise here, there is no "not" part of the sentence, it is merely "I neither read nor write". However, if you said "there is no book nor newspaper", you would need "non" again.
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Good and pragmatic way to tackle it.
However, since in Italian the same negation is used in both cases («né – né»), I would prefer to translate them using one and the same English expression; «I neither read nor write» and «it is neither tea nor black coffee». No need for «not» then …
ah, but "it is neither tea nor coffee" is a different sentence than "There is no coffee or tea". I'm going to bet the lesson was the latter, rather than the former (in that case, really, " Non c'e'...", but I was merely quoting the question asked; that first sentence is only useful to you if you are regularly doing blind taste tests!
