"Non me l'aspettavo da te."
Translation:I was not expecting it from you.
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I don't understand why "me" is in this sentence. What part does it play? It also seems to me that, at least without the "me", a possible translation could be "I used to wait for him/her/it at your place". Does anyone concur?
the reflexive verb aspettarsi is the translation "to expect" or "to expect of"
aspettare alone=to wait for
so you have the wrong verb you're translating.
According to https://www.duolingo.com/skill/it/Clitic-Pronouns-1 it should be "mi" not "me" for reflexive verbs, right? According to the article the only usage for "me" is after the verb for direct object case. Can someone explain why "me" and not "mi" is correct here? Google Translate happily translates both variants.
@Bazza9 gave a possible but unverified explanation. It this is truly an exception to the clitics rules it should find its way back into the article. I personally find clitics one of the most difficult aspects of the language and missing out on a rule like this leaves me wondering if there is anything else we are missing.
If I recall correctly it's because it was followed by another clitic (l'). In such cases, the first clitic can change like that, from "mi" to "me".
Why is it "me" and not "mi" in this sentence? I thought it comes from the reflexive pronoun "aspettarsi qc da qn". The reflexive pronoun is "mi" though.
Maybe someone can give the full and proper details, but I believe that it is because there are two object pronouns together, an indirect (the mi) and the direct (l'). When there are two object pronouns together the indirect one changes its "i" to "e" (if it ends in an i).
yea, same thing with me. I think it's more proper to say i wasn't expecting it of you.
The official translation isn't bad but I think I would perhaps use that if I received a gift but it feels more like an unexpected behaviour in which case I would more likely say "of you"
"Aspettavo" is imperfect, an Italian tense used to tell about repeated past actions, provide background information or to tell about what action was ongoing when something else happened.
As there is no imperfect tense in English we somehow need to build one of these situations into the translation.
Non me = not, me
l'aspettavo *(lo/la+aspettavo) = it, I would/used to expect
da te = from, you
Not me I would expect from you. =
I would not had expect it from you. ~
I was not expecting it from you.
'I hadn't expected it from you' - not accepted - yet 'I didn't expect it from you' is. Give me break DL or please someone enlighten me!
I have a feeling your translation is pluperfect. Had expected takes it a step furthet in to the past
Quite right - thank you. My bad - the lesson is on the imperfect after all.
I don't understand this. I wrote: "I wasn't expecting it from you" and it was marked wrong. Does DL understand about contractions of the verbs?
I'll give this a try, and someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure the mi changes to me when it precedes lo ('it' in this sentence).