58 Comments
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I wrote "the woman dines." It was an acceptable answer and a more natural translation.
Yes. And "cena" is in third person verb mode here and so mates well with "dines"
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Either one would be. "Dines" is acceptable although it would be to stilted for normal conversation.
when speaking in Italian, could you say "La donna mangia la cena" too?
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Because to say that you would have to say "the dinner of the woman" which I can't remember how to say right now. This does not say that.
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in this case, "cena" is a verb (cenare) and "mangia" is an unnecessary repetition.
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- 1855
"The woman eats" would be "La donna mangia". The word Duo asked you to translate specifically means "eats dinner".
And previously that was the answer they wanted and it was the correct one. Frustrated. Dines, eats. Both are a translation for "cena".
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- 1855
No. "Dines/cena" is specifically "eats dinner".
"Eats" is more broadly defined. "Dines" is more narrowly defined.
cenare = to eat dinner
mangiare = to eat
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"The lady has supper" is wrong? i.e. donna only means women? and never 'lady' ? And thank you!
Daniel
La donna specifically means 'woman'. La Signora specifically means 'lady'.
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To me (a native English speaker), 'woman' and 'lady' are exact synonyms in English, except the latter maybe sounds slightly more old-fashioned.
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"A girl, a woman and a lady" "a yes, a no and a maybe". Poignant song lyrics.
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It depends on context, but "lady" and "woman" can have different connotations. I (also a native English speaker) don't like the term "lady" outside its use in formal settings. For one thing, it has a shady history of being used to clobber women who don't act according to expectations.
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- 1364
You are so right. The history of that word over the last century is interesting. Its use (or non-use) played an important role in women's rights, and I believe continues to do so.
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- 1855
Because that's just not how we say it in English. You have breakfast, have lunch, have dinner. You have food, but you have a meal.
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- 1855
Because eating is very generic. "Cenare" is specifically "to eat dinner".
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- 1855
Think of "to dine" in English. "To dine" means "to eat dinner". So in Italian, "cenare" means "to eat dinner" or "to dine".
I thought "La donna cena" meant the woman has dinner, not the woman eats dinner. Wouldn't you need mangiare?
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- 1855
In English, we can say "to have dinner" to mean "to eat dinner", but Italian does not use that idiom.
The verb "cenare" [link] means "to eat dinner" and is a lot like the English verb "to dine". They also have a verb "pranzare" which means "to eat lunch" [link].
Also, this question has been addressed multiple times already in this thread.
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We could of course translate "pranzare" as "to lunch" - la donna pranza = the woman lunches.
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- 1855
Some could. That construction is not very common in my area, though.
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- 1855
Both are valid. "la cena" is the noun "dinner" and "cenare" is the verb "to eat dinner" or "to dine".
http://www.italian-verbs.com/italian-verbs/conjugation.php?parola=cenare
io ceno
tu ceni
lui/lei cena
noi ceniamo
voi cenate
loro cenano
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Not recognising correct translation. This is happening a lot recently.
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i wrote "the woman dines" and got it marked wrong, that's what we would say (English English)
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- 1855
Yes, that should have been accepted. Next time that happens, flag it.
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- 1855
The verb cenare means "to eat dinner". It's like the English "to dine".
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- 1855
"Dinner" vs "supper" is regional. In some dialects there's a distinction and in some dialects they're synonyms.
What about colazione? Can we say "La donna colazione " for "the woman eats breakfast"?
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- 1855
Apparently not.
Italian has "pranzare" for "to eat lunch" and "cenare" for "to eat dinner", but there is no special verb for "to eat breakfast". It's simply "fare colazione" or "mangiare colazione".
