"He has not wanted to miss the boy's birthday."
Translation:Non ha voluto mancare il compleanno del ragazzo.
24 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
Now hang on. In an earlier question I wrote "mancare il compleanno" and it said I was wrong, and that I had to write "mancare al compleanno". This time I wrote that, and now it says that's wrong, and that it has to be "mancare il compleanno"!? :(
I'm a native Italian speaker, in this phrase it's correct "mancare al compleanno" or "perdere il compleanno" (they both are correct)
And "mancare il compleanno" (the accepted translation here) is also okay? Is there the subtle difference in meaning as described by pyatpree just above in this discussion?
It's not correct. I'm italian and I never listen to this sentence, or read it. Maybe can be a "dialecticism", but it's not italian.
Same problem, mancare has always been confusing, and now even more. If I understood well it's "mancare al" when you're absent, and "mancare il" when you miss or rather forget about something?
When one misses something or someone in the sense that one longs for that something or someone to be near one, then that something/someone is the subject in Italian, not the object. One, on the hand, is in fact expressed as the indirect object in Italian. E.g. "I miss you." Is "Mi manci.", Literally meaning "You are missing in such a way that affects me."
Apart from the "mancare al compleanno" problem I also have problem with the "non ha voluto". And furthermore in English I bet no one would say "he has not wanted to miss...", but rather would everyone say "he didn't want to miss", so if we speak about a non willing to miss anything we would also say in Italian "non voleva mancare al compleanno" - this should be accepted as correct, in my opinion. (Of course I know that in Italian they say "non ha voluto...", which is ALSO correct.
936
I am struggling with this topic an I definitely hate the English sentence. Present Perfect has different usage/function. Or I might as well learn some English
Yes, of all the times Duo decides to use present perfect they choose the wrong sentence. Go figure? It's ok we'll remember the Italian and use the correct English where necessary. But they should also give the past as an alternative at least.
As a native English speaker I agree that you wouldn't say "he has not wanted to miss...". You'd say "he didn't want to miss" or even "he wanted not to miss" (which is technically correct but almost no one would say it that way nowadays). If neither of those fit, you'd have to use a completely different sentence, like "he was worried about missing...".
Could someone please explain for me why the imperfect isn't used here?
