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- "How much I have thought of y…
"How much I have thought of you!"
Translation:Quanto ti ho pensata!
44 Comments
what confused me is "pensata" which I thought did not change whether you are thinking of a man or of a woman. Usually the past participle changes with the gender of the nominative when the verb is intransitive like in sono entrata if it is a female or sono entrato if it is a male.
I still think that "ti" is indirect object like in "mi piace" therefore I am still confused why it is "pensata" instead of "pensato". Could anybody from Duolingo answer our questions?
349
I have read through all these comments as I am also very puzzled by this. It is very disappointing that in the 5 years since this question was asked there has been no contribution from a moderator. Up to very recently people are still asking why 'pensata' not 'pensato'. However I googled "quanta ti ho pensata" and found that the same sentence has another discussion page on Duo and there is an explanation on there. I recommend having a look. In summary it seems that the verb pensare takes an indirect object in expressions such as "penso a mia figlia", "penso a mio fratello", but when the noun is replaced by the pronoun it becomes a direct object. ("La penso", "lo penso" instead of "le penso", "gli penso"). So in this case the 'ti' is a direct object preceding the past participle, which therefore has to agree. But it would be great if someone with authority could confirm this, it often feels as if there is nobody from Duo looking at our questions.
FrancesDav3 wrote:"However I googled "quanta ti ho pensata" and found that the same sentence has another discussion page on Duo and there is an explanation on there. I recommend having a look"
Here is the link. Once you are there search for "atonic" to find the relevant posts by sandrabuck and sharkbbb. (FrancesDav3 has summarised the content rather well though)
https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/203507/Quanto-ti-ho-pensata
That's very useful @FrancesDav3! Thanks for the clarification and have a lingot. Does anyone know if there are other verbs like this or if pensare is just an anomaly in that regard?
I chose both 'Quanto ti ho pensato' and 'Quanto ti ho pensata' because I thought that the past participle changed according to the gender of 'ti' which is not evident in this example. So I have the same question!
Can some grammar guru tell me whether 'ti' is a direct object pronoun or an indirect object pronoun in this case? If it is a direct object pronoun referring to a feminine object, DL is correct to use 'pensata' instead of 'pensato.' If it is an indirect object, 'pensato' should be used.
- 1191
How much = Quanto
I have thought = ho pensato(/a) *
of you = ti / a te
Quanto ho pensato/a a te. / Quanto ti ho pensato/a.
*
As pensare is using avere as auxiliar to form passato prossimo you don't have to align the participle to gender and number, - unless you are using a direct object pronoun, - mi, ti, lo, la, ci, vi, li, le.
In this case the past participle acts as an adjective and must be modified to suit the gender and number of the object.
https://www.thoughtco.com/direct-object-pronouns-in-past-tense-2011704
- 667
Sorry ! I am not a guru but this is how I try to sort the two out. I have thought what? how much ( direct object) I have thought to you -a te(indirect object). But anyways when the past participle of a verb conjugated with "avere" is preceded by the third person direct pronouns lo.la .li and le the past participle matches the preceding direct object pronouns in gender and number but with mi .ti ,ci and vi I read it is optional. So Pensato should be accepted I think.
- 198
When "pensato" (or any passato prossimo verb for that matter) is referring to the direct object pronouns for "them" (li/le), it is required to change the ending of the verb to match the gender. However, when you are referring to a single person, it is optional to change the verb ending. Unfortunately, Duo doesn't seem to have that bit of grammar in their system
To complicate things, pensare a te and pensare di te have different meanings. See Word Reference: http://www.wordreference.com/iten/pensare
In French and Italian the verb to think is usually followed by the propositon "a" not "de of di.
Here is what cacioepepe was referring to, some exceptions that use di.
modo di pensare way of thinking n pensare bene di (opinion of others) think highly of [sb], have a good opinion of [sb], think well of [sb] vtr pensare che sia il caso di think you ought to vtr pensare di essersi liberati di qualcuno think that you have freed yourself of [sb] expr pensare fuori dagli schemi
- 36
I answered 'Quanto ho pensato di te'.
I didn't follow the format being used in the lesson and placed the object pronoun after the verb instead of before it. Is my answer wrong?
- 36
You are absolutely right. I didn't know the difference between 'pensare a' and 'pensare di' when i originally posted. Those darn prepositions make all the difference. Thanks for the reply.
- 319
some verbs require a particular preposition to use with infinitives, nouns, or pronouns or phrases. 'pensare' is one of those verbs. here is an abridged listing of some of those verbs in which 'pensare' is listed twice. https://www.thoughtco.com/italian-verbs-and-prepositions-2011671
however, "cosa pensi di questo libro."
In thinking about it more, the more "Italian way" of phrasing this idea in English is not "I have thought OF you" but "I have thought TO you"... So the proper translations would be "Quanto ho pensato a te!" or "Quanto ti ho pensato!"
- 1471
Probably because the original sentence was in Italian and was "Quanto ti ho pensata!" The translation to English loses the gender in "you", so translations back to Italian are valid for both.
"How much I have thought of you!" Translation:
"quanto vi ho pensato" should be accepted, as there was nothing to indicate that the you in the english sentence was purely singular
I'm with you... Since it was a statement of emphasis, one would think "di te" would have been acceptable.
(non italian) I think that is where the difference lies. (I'm falling back on my German also) You can think about something or you can think of something. When I think about my children it's more of a what will they become, have they done their homework, why are they bugging each other all the time while when I think of them it's more like a memory of them, being close to my heart at that point. This difference exists in German, too, and I think it may help me remember when to use 'di' (about) or 'a' (of). If I got this right?!!! Anyone else?
One more vote in this case: I also thought that and wrote : QUANTO HO PENSATO A TE but unfortunately was not accepted. DUOLINGO TAKE A NOTE!!!
