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- Topic: Italian >
- "I cannot wait."
"I cannot wait."
Translation:Non vedo l'ora.
72 Comments
How should I know an idiom I have never heard before? And it is far from the literal translation. I think it doesn't fit in this kind of exercise, at least not without introducing it first. And when there is also an obvious answer you just jump on it and it's wrong. That is not good.
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You have a point, this is an idiomatic sentence and the meaning is not obvious to someone who's never come across it before. However, in reality when someone is talking to you it is very likely you hear this in place of "non posso aspetto" or something similar.
At the end of the day, personally I see this (duolingo) as one of many available learning tools. No more, no less. And as part of the learning curve you are allowed to get things wrong, it's not an exam (in fact make that "you WILL get things wrong - learning a language from scratch is a difficult process!")
I take your point that it might seem harsh if you've never come across it before, but now you have. And as a result of getting this "wrong" in a safe environment where no harm has been done, nobody's been misunderstood or upset you will now remember this sentence/idiom. Isn't that the purpose of learning?
You are probably right. Problem is because there is also the obvious literal answer in the multiple choice question, it feels much like a trick question which is just frustrating. There should be a better way to introduce such idiomatic sentences.
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I will make the point that Duo provides a specific tool headed 'idioms' which is optional ad not essential which is a good thing. To me, I am runnibg 8 languages here and find idioms as a set back when in the 'must do' lessons. Idioms invariably break the standard rules of grammar abd syntax but learners need to know the very essential main rules (in this nice casual way) so that becomes embedded thoroughly first. Once that is achieved, we can always go vack to the idioms later. We will all make enough mistakes in learning the essential grammar. Idioms especially early in the course will only cloud the issue. So for that reason I'd say put all idioms only under the 'idioms' icon. Regards.
Yes, sometimes it's annoying, but we are allowed to get things wrong as part of the learning process.
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Yeah and when these types of sentences CONTINUE to pop up without enough frequency to enable a person to remember, it causes a person to lose motivation and abandon the learning process. No one likes being wrong through no fault of their own.
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The philisophy of DL is "learn through error"
Make a mistake once. Don't make it a second time.
Stop complaining. Just learn!
Reminds me of a famous "gaffe" a president once made about the saying that includes the words "fool me once [...] fool me twice [...]" :)
The literal translation of "I cannot wait" is "non posso aspettare". Duo accepts this as a valid answer too.
"I cannot wait to hear the record." - "Non vedo l'ora di sentire il disco."
"No, I cannot wait a year." - "No, non posso aspettare un anno."
In other words, it's phrased differently when it's "cannot wait to do" vs "cannot wait +time period".
Which way is it when you have both? I imagine it would be time period because that usually comes directly after "cannot wait".
No, non posso aspettare un anno di sentire il disco. --?
Yes, but I had it as was a multiple choice, so there was only one answer. I guess that this comment section covers all kinds of tests based upon a single sentence.
It does. Literally translated, this reads "I do not see the time." But it's an idiom that means "I can't wait."
Just out of curiousity. How would one say "I do not see the time" (as in a situation where someone may need to leave immediately because they didnt realize the time). Is it all just context in this case?
I don't know, but I suspect it's similar to the way we occasionally say idiomatic things in English and need to clarify, "No, I mean that literally."
That is the answer I gave, because there is no way at all that I would have known the idiomatic expression, but that's life.
Translating "aspettare" as "wait" or "await" or "wait for" is more of an art than a science. Things don't usually line up cleanly between languages.
"I don't see the time."
"I can't see the time" would be "Non posso vedere l'ora."
My two cents as a language/linguistics instructor: This needs to be fixed. The glosses give you no indication, only literal translations that don't even appear as options (at least when I encountered it). I can try to figure out (semi-logically, semi-intuitively) what to respond, but I have decades of language experience. This is likely to frustrate many learners. If you can guarantee that the literal words won't appear as options, and that a literal translation will be accepted (as long as it's basically correct), then go ahead and indicate that this is an idiomatic expression, and allow learners to puzzle it out, OR only provide the words that are in the expression, and let them arrange them. THEN, and ONLY then, is it not like throwing a trick question at them.
"Non posso aspettare " I think that is better explanation for us whom don't speak italian.
Because you've got two present tense verbs there and it doesn't work like that. With posso it basically means 'I am able to' so after that you need the infinitive 'aspettare' not the present tense aspetto - Non posso aspetto would be I am not able wait.
"I can't wait" is an American saying meaning you're looking forward to something. If you literally can NOT wait then you would use "non posso aspettare"
The first time I tried this sentence I got it wrong but then I saw the actual Italian translation and instantly comprehended what it meant mainly because of my Spanish. In Spanish "No veo la hora..." means "I can't wait". For example "No veo la hora que se caiga" means "I can't wait until he/she falls".
"Non vedo l'ora di rivederti" I knew this one from personal experience :) :) :)
So to be clear, is "non vedo l'ora" used idiomatically the same as "I can't wait!" is in English?
Sure, that's the literal translation, but unless they actually say that in Italy, then it's not a valid translation.
Though http://context.reverso.net/traduzione/inglese-italiano/i+can%27t+wait suggests that the Non vedo l'ora is far more common.
As someone with a background in linguistics, I cannot agree with that statement. Common usage is exactly what determines "correctness".
If more people say "Non vedo l'ora", then that is the expression. If fewer people say "Non posso attendere", then that is the variant.
There's the artificial standard dialect you're explicitly taught in school, which almost nobody uses naturally, and there's the dialect you grew up learning that nobody had to explicitly teach you, which varies from region to region.
It's all a matter of what native speakers use more frequently.
However in this case, since it is the idiom used in Italian for this concept, Non vedo l'ora is the phrase we should use for 'I can't wait' if we want to sound as if we're fluent when talking to an Italian. But as has already been noted, the other phrase works too. Non posso aspettare anyway. If you want to argue the attendere there's a report button for that. Except that here it doesn't work because it's in the intransitive mode where attendere means 'attend to' not 'await'. You need something to wait for specified for it to mean wait. https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/italian-english/attendere
The answer DL give me is:
Non posso aspettare
Why aspettare not aspetto?
Same reason why we say "He cannot wait" and not "He cannot waits".
You can't have two tensed verbs stacked like that. The first verb takes the tense and the second remains untensed.
io non aspetto is what i typed...........yup an idiom is just like theirs for April Fools joke.....check that one out
I don't get when to use "l'"properly, I thought that it was used for masculine words that start with a vowel, but isn't "ora" feminine?
"L'" Is Used As A Shortening Of Both "Lo" And "La" When Preceding A Vowel.
i chose non posso aspettare and I got it right. Can someone explain what vedo l'ora means?
Literally it would be "I see the hour" or "I see the time". Somewhat similar to "I am looking forward to..." in that it also uses "see/look" in a figurative sense. Didn't know that idiom before either, but I think it nicely conveys the meaning.
First time seeing this idiom, should be introduced with multiple choice question before having to translate straight away
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I got it right but I think it should not be in here. I am really annoyed by all these excuses for Duo. This is just poor.
You have not been blocked, but feedback -- positive or negative -- that is not constructive is just clutter and is subject to removal. Negative feedback without any explanation is just complaining, and that is useless. We're not mind-readers. We cannot confirm that you actually answered correctly if you do not share your full, exact, letter-for-letter answer with us. Not by re-typing, but by copying and pasting or taking a screenshot. 90% of the time, people think they did it right but they really made an error that they did not see. The other 10% of the time, either the course contributors did not add that to the database or the app glitched.
