43 Comments
For any who want to know why this is "how many of them" and not "how much of it", your answer is found in the verb "lasciati". In phrases like this the verb takes on either a singular or a plural form (similar to how nouns change) which tells us what "ne" represents.
"Lasciati" ends in "-i", and tells us the verb is in a plural form. Whenever you see that "ne" is going to mean more than one as well, in this case " of them". For "ne" to be "of it" the verb would need to be something like "lasciata" or "lasciato".
Perhaps someone better qualified can come along and demystify some nuances or word this better, but until then that should get people by.
Also 'quanti' is plural. Quanto = how much. Quanti = how many. In English 'many' is used for countable things, so able to have a plural version, such as 'pen - pens', and 'much' is used for non-countable, so not a plural version, such as 'water' (not possible to say waters). So, how much of IT, and how many of THEM.
And “lasciati” here is a past participle. In italian, if the object of the sentence is before avere, the past participle agrees with the object (“ne” here). This is not the case with essere, where the past participle agrees with the subject.
Grazie Asche42 per la tua spiegazione. Potresti darci an esempio? Ti ringrazio. Complimenti per tutte le lingue che tu sta imparando!
I keep hearing "net hai" is there really an invisible "t" pronounced when this is spoken?
I think that would need an extra verb - quanti ne hai lasciati andare - for example.
Thanks to all for your comments. Does anybody know if there is a rule to know when to conjugate the past participle when the auxiliary is "avere?" In this case "Quanti hai LASCIATI?, why not Quanti hai lasciato?" ...I understood that the participle is conjugated only when "essere" is used as auxiliary as in "Noi siamo arrival." Thank you all!
I know the rule for this but I'm not good on grammatical terms, but I'll give it a go - if you have la, lo, gli, ne, etc in front of avere plus the past participle then the ending is changed to reflect this eg; I left her = l'ho lasciata because l' refers to her, ie feminine, so the past participle is made feminine too.
And in the above case Quanti is masc plural so the past participle is also masc plural....
Hi JuanJohnGiovani Based on earlier contributions above It's either Quanti hai lasciati ( how many have you left) Or Quanto hai lasciato ( how much have you left)) But not ever the second one you have written
It is very vague, yes. I wouldn't call it part of the beauty so much as I would the curse of Duolingo. For novices (including myself), things like this may be confusing as is, but if you saw a sentence like this in a story or an article written in Italian the meaning would be very obvious.
I'm confused -- isn't this past tense? And isn't the lesson about the Present tense? What?
If one wanted to indicate in addition "for me" how would the ne and the me be combined?
Why cant i say "how many of them do you have left?" Duo wants how many of them have you left? Which is absurd... Nobody says that in english. Thoughts?
1925
The duo 'counter' suggestion is '...have you left' on the floor/in the box/at your friend's.
As in '...did you leave'.
Not '...do you have left'.
This use of lasciare means did you leave, not do you have left.
The English “have you left” is ambiguous, meaning either “did you leave” or “do you still possess”. Google translates “How many of them do you have left?” as “Quanti ne hai lasciati?” If that is correct it shows the Italian has the same ambiguity. But if Google is wrong then how do you say “do you have left” in Italian?
Quanti ne hai rimasti? = How many of them do you have left? Can "Quanti ne hai lasciati?" have the same meaning?
Hi Anthony, I understand your frustration since it happens often to me with different things which are peculiar to the Italian language. With regards to your specific question, the form/tense of the verb varies from language to language, even in the romance languages. For example, in Spanish (that I see you are also studying), you would say "Cuántos TE quedan de xxx?" as opposed to "How many of them do you have left? As you see in Spanish you use the present tense, as opposed to the present perfect in both Italian and English. My point is that each language has a peculiar way of saying things. I hope this helps. Ciao
"I sent you out for doughnuts and there are crumbs all over your desk! How many of them have you left [for the rest of us]?"
"I hear those anonymous notes have been appearing all over the dorm. How many of them have you left?"
It's not too hard to think of grammatically correct uses of the sentence in English. :)
I still don't think anyone has given a clear distinction between "How many of them do you have left?" and "How many of them did you leave?". I wrote the former and was marked wrong. So, if I want to say "How many of them do you have left?", how do I say it?
- 1350
Does anyone have any idea why: "How many of them do you have left ?" is pinged as wrong? Thanks.
I tried to suggest a past action with How many of them did you have left? It was given as wrong but I wondered how it would be said in Italian?
