"The butterflies in the zoo are his."
Translation:Le farfalle nello zoo sono le sue.
33 Comments
The possessive is an adjective, so they are the same gender and number as the noun they refer to, not the person having possession :)
I really appreciate you taking the time to explain the nuances of Italian grammar. Grazie F.Formica!
This clarifies things for me and answers my previous question. Thanks, Formica.
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.
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Help. If the adjective is "his", and butterflies are plural, why wouldn't you use i suoi? Thanks..
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Actually nello is used with masculine nouns starting with x, y, z, and doble consonant.
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Nel = in + il. Nello = in + lo. You have to use the one that combines the correct article based on the noun.
Credo che la risposta "le farfalle nello zoo sono di lui" dovesse essere accetata come correta.
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The last 4 questions put me through "sue" being for women and "sua" for men, which i thought odd. Now suddenly "sue" is for a man?
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if "le sue" refers to the butterflies and they say that are HIS how do I know when to use "e" or "sono"
The verb is always conjugated in accordance with the subject: "la farfalla รจ ..." (the butterfly is ...), "le farfalle sono..." (the butterflies are ...). Note that the subject doesn't necessarily come first, and that when using a past participle it doesn't always follow the same rule.
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I still don't understand when it's "le sue", and why not "il suo/la sua"... :(
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.
Thanks for the side note. You've just clarified for me why the article is sometimes missing and sometimes not in sentence such predicates. Do you understand why it is optional?
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le farfalle = sue The verb form of "to be" or sono in this case makes the predicate nominative refer back to the subject which already has its article.
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Can someone tell me the differences between "le sue" and "I suoi"? Thanks! :)
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If I understand correctly, "le sue" = feminine plural, "I suoi" = masculine plural.
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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!!
Why isn't "La farfalle nello zoo sono sue" correct? Why have "le sue?"
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I added in one extra "le" between "nello" and "zoo" and it say it's incorrect, whats wrong with that?
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Because you use lo before zoo and it is already incorporated in with the word nel
Awwww I was so close >_> I forgot to use "Le" because of the feminine plural :(
