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- "I have the men's books."
"I have the men's books."
Translation:Ho i libri degli uomini.
49 Comments
734
So if the sentence was "I have the women's books", would it be "Ho i libri delle donne". Any comments much appreciated.
- 287
Da is from (i remember it by a is to, so add the d to get from. And di is of, which changes to degli to be of the.
I put in dell'uomini and they gave me the point but told me to pay attention to the gender. So dell' is only for female nouns that start with a vowel?
- 1001
dell'uomini is not Italian. The article for uomini is only gli, therefore de + gli = degli
I don't think so because the article in this case is "Gli". Remember that "Gli" is used for plurals that start with a vowel. De + Gli = Degli. "I" is used for plurals starting with consonants.
E.g.: I libri, Gli uomini
Or at least that is what Duolingo has taught me.
Just wanted to add on slightly to Alejandro's comment above - 'gli' should only be used for masculine plural nouns that begin with a vowel or beginning with s + consonant or the letter 'z.' Hope this helps!
- 586
Shouldn't it be mens' instead of men's since we're talking about it belonging to multiple men, and not just one man? Seems like the English isn't correct, unless I'm wrong?
"Men" is already the plural of "man", therefore the apostrophe goes before the s, which is strictly possessive here.
de is "of"; da is "from". "of" is used for the possessive: the books of the men.
It should be. If you don't have any other errors or typos, you can flag it and report "My answer should be accepted."
- 721
Thank you, Rae. When i wanted to do that there was only a possibility to “discuss” (which of course made me end up on the discussion forum). Will see what happens next time i come across same or similar sentence. Thanks for the thumbs up.
In the word "Degli" much like other "gli" variations, do you even pronounce the 'G'? I clicked on Degli and it just sounds like "duh"
- 1023
G like "dissolves" (assimilates) here and not actually pronounced as a standalone sound. You should say something like "deyyi", but it is better if you listen its pronounciation in whole sentences. It may slightly change near stressed syllables and sound closer to "dei" when the neighboring words unstressed.
All words that have a gli are pronounced as the 'll' in million. Or thats what ive heard.
gl is a digraph here, meaning that instead of the g and the l each getting pronounced separately, they indicate a single sound that is neither G nor L.
I do not understand why the article "i" is necessary in this sentence, unless the translation is something like: "I have the books of the men."
- 1001
Even in 'I have the men's books' you need the article. It refers to the books even if it is followed by 'men'.
Is gli not being treated as an article here when combined with de?
- 1001
Yes, Indeed. 'I have the books of the men' is how Italian forms a possessive sentence: 'possessed thing' di 'owner'. La casa di Mario -> 'Mario's house'. Il libro di Giulia -> 'Giulia's book'.
Incidentally, you need to use the article with possessive adjectives. La sua casa -> 'his/her house'. Il suo libro -> 'his/her book'
Interesting! It would be handy if Duolingo expanded its tips page to include rules like this, but I suppose that's why we have the comment section. Thank you for your answers!
We would need to know more details, such as exactly how the question was presented to you and exactly how you answered. It wasn't including "io" that got you marked wrong. You either had a typo or error or extra space somewhere, or you didn't select all of the correct multiple choice options, or you dragged from the word bank instead of tapping.
The extra space issue and the dragging issue are bugs, not valid reasons to mark you wrong, so next time that happens (after you triple-check to make sure you had no typos or errors) take a screen shot and fill out a bug report.
https://support.duolingo.com/hc/en-us/sections/200864570-Reporting-Issues
First, the personal pronoun that means "I" is not "Lo" but rather "io". Second, the pronoun io does not contract with anything.
degli uomini, not degli uomino.
one man = un uomo
two men = due uomini
the man = l'uomo
the men = gli uomini
Yes, that is literally how that's said in Italian, and yes it's possible to say it that way in English, but it's very uncommon. We typically say "I have the men's books".
