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- Topic: Italian >
- "You eat a fish."
"You eat a fish."
Translation:Mangiate un pesce.
42 Comments
and if you use it for singular person the translation would be "Mangi un pesce" Both are correct
In this case it's how you interpret "you" in the sentence. Either as "tu" or as "voi" - - for tu the correct form of the verb is mangi, for voi the correct form is mangiate. (apologies for any mistakes in my English)
173
Ok, so I mismatched the pronoun and the verb form; how would we know from just the English sentence which form to translate it into: "tu" or "voi"?
Either is correct even though Duo marks the 2nd person singular use as incorrect.
- 766
"Tu" is the second person singular, whereas "voi" is the second person plural. Each has a different conjugation, similar to Spanish and other Latin languages. In English it's just you for singular or plural, although in some parts of the country people would say you all or y'all... haha.
- 173
This is exactly the problem: unless I know the context--how many people are being addressed (from a single sentence--not likely!)--I don't know which form to use (singular or plural); so how is one necessarily marked correct here over the other.
- 766
Good point. Either "tu" or "voi" would be correct. I was trying to say that if you choose "tu", the ensuing conjugation just needs to correspond. You would say "tu mangi" or "voi mangiate", but never "tu mangiate" or "voi mangi". thanks.
I love this app, doesn't let you go to the next one until you do it right, and the more you repeat the lesson the more you learn
- 48
Ok, but how can I know which form is required – tu or voi? In English it's the same. So both tu mangi un pesce and voi mangiate un pesce should be correct. And I was wrong according to Duolingo when I selected the first one with tu...
Stupid that I can't use "tu mangi" or "mangi". There's no way to declare whether the "you" in this sentence is plural.
Mangiate is a shorthand for Voi mangiate -- both should be accepted, but only the former is "correct"
- 766
Hi! In English "you" can be singular or plural, depending on the context. "You all" is a colloquialism, mostly heard in the South, but not grammatically necessary.
Examples:
Speaking to one person: "Hi Mom! When did you get here?"
Speaking to multiple people: "Hi Mom and Dad! When did you get here?"
Same exact sentence - "When did you get here?" In the first one, "you" is singular (to one person), in the second one, "you" is plural (to multiple people).
