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- "The clothing"
"The clothing"
Translation:L'abbigliamento
78 Comments
1863
I think it's a collective noun. If so, then just as you don't say sheeps, I guess you wouldn't say gli abbigliamenti.
I don't think "sheep" is a collective noun. The singular and the plural just happen to be homonyms, but they're still singular and plural.
I think a better example is "people". You don't usually say "peoples" unless you mean it in the sense of "nations" or "races".
But I think you're correct about "gli abbigliamenti".
They're pretty much synonymous but "clothes" tends to refer to a specific set of recogniseable clothes (e.g. "I have a lot of clothes in my wardrobe" or "I like shopping for clothes") whereas "clothing" is a more general term for any body covering (e.g. "cavemen didn't wear clothing" or "most clothing is made from fabric"). It's very subtle though, and as a native speaker it's hard for me to clearly explain the difference!
187
Because it's technically "Lo abbiglamento". A masculine noun that begins with a vowel always takes the article "lo". But it gets shortened. Lo animale --> L'animale Lo orologio --> L'orologio Lo uomo --> L'uomo And "lo" becomes "gli" for plural. Gli animali Gli orologi Gli uomini
316
it depends on the number of typos or if the typo is a really word in its own right. 'cappello vs capello'
How is it plural?
In English, "clothing" is an uncountable noun; you can't have "a clothing" or "two clothings", just "some clothing". Semantically, it's neither singular nor plural, but syntactically, it is singular: you say "the clothing is", not *"the clothing are". The same is true of Italian `abbigliamento'.
In English we can also say "clothes", which is also uncountable: you can't have "a clothe" or "two clothes", just "some clothes". This word is semantically neither singular nor plural, but unlike clothing, it's syntactically plural: "the clothing is" vs "the clothes are". Italian "i vestiti" works much the same way; the difference is that "vestiti" is also the regular plural of "il vestito", the dress.
316
if you know that something is acceptable but it isn't accepted when you used it; you made another mistake.
187
Really DuoLingo?!?! Are you really gonna screw me out of a heart because I misspelled it with one B instead of two?!?!