"The butterflies in the zoo are his."
Translation:Le farfalle nello zoo sono le sue.
87 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
908
Help. If the adjective is "his", and butterflies are plural, why wouldn't you use i suoi? Thanks..
1366
It's "le sue" because "le farfalle" is plural feminine. His and her is both suo/sua/suoi/sue; the same word for his and for her.
Simply put, you don't; there's hardly any need to distinguish when speaking of a third person, and gender isn't the most convenient attribute to identify a person anyway (around half the world has the same gender). On the other hand Lei is also a courtesy pronoun, and the distinction between his/hers and yours is much more sensible; in writing you can capitalize to distinguish, but in speech it can be really ambiguous.
The possessive matches what it refers to (the owned object), and in this case it refers to the subject; it's semantically not that different from "sono le sue farfalle" (it is syntactically though). As a side note, the article is optional when the possessive is a predicate, i.e. it could have been "le farfalle sono sue" as well.
I did the 'Check ALL correct meanings' one and got it wrong. I wrote my mistakes down on a paper so I could remember, and it still said I got it wrong. Anyone know why? It was TOTALLY correct! I did from the last time I got it wrong and WROTE IT DOWN!!
1366
No, it has nothing to do with butterflies being plural or pasta being singular, but everything with the next word. It is "nello" instead of "nel" because "zoo" starts with a "z": "lo zoo". "in + lo"="nello"; "in + il"="nel". You can read more about this subject in the Tips and Notes of chapter Basics 2.
1048
Second and third answer are exactly the same, but third is incorrect and second is correct. Makes no sense. This is a bug that has to be fixed.
1366
If it really is as you describe then you should report it (flag) instead of writing a comment. However, I don't know what options were given but I think the second and third answer are slightly different.
1366
nella and nello both mean in the. nella is the contraction of in la and nello of in lo. The English in the zoo is nello zoo in Italian because it is lo zoo. It doesn't depend on the grammatical gender of the animals that are in the zoo ;-).
1366
It's an open door, but don't think of learning a language as a competition. Everyone learns at their own pace. Some people have already progressed because they have been busy for some time. Others because they can and want to spend more time learning. For other people, learning takes almost no effort because they have a talent for languages.
At school I had tremendous difficulties with German and French; I was glad I didn't have to take an exam in those subjects. English was also difficult for me (especially the pronunciation and place of the adverb, place and time), but that language was a compulsory course. Now that I learn with Duolingo, it turns out that I can learn languages, that I have remembered a lot from the past, and that I enjoy learning.
Some languages suit you better than others. I am currently mainly working on Swedish and Norwegian. I see that you have also learned some Romanian. I have known someone who spoke several languages fluently. When he started learning Romanian, he found it the most difficult language he had ever come across. So be proud of yourself for learning other languages. Do it at your own pace and enjoy it. And don't worry about people who get a lot of points, although it is nice to stay in the league ;-)
1366
Nobody in this forum knows what your options were. When you see that two options are exactly the same - I doubt that - then you should report that using the flag.
1366
You can't. "his" and "her" should both be accepted. Sometimes you can tell from context.
1366
A butterfly is an insect, not a dish or a certain kind of butter!
la farfalla - the butterfly
le farfalle - the butterflies
The sentence is about butterflies, le farfalle.
1366
Yes, why not? Tropical butterflies in a piece of imitated tropical rainforest (Burgers' Bush in Arnhem (NL)), or to show how they pupate, the educational aspect. Enough reasons to keep butterflies in a zoo.