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- Topic: Italian >
- "Loro stanno bene insieme."
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"Michelle, my belle, sono parole che stanno bene insieme, bene insieme"
Yes "They are doing well together." is accepted as correct. I just entered it.
My answer, "They get along well together," wasn't accepted. I think it should be.
Two questions back a poor soul complained that "stanno" was not accepted in "Do fish and red wine go well together?" Translation: Il pesce e il vino rosso vanno bene insieme?
And here it's OK. What's up? Why?
As far as I understand it, stare is idiomatic to express a temporary state of being while andtare means physically goes.
In other Latin languages like Spanish and Portuguese one form of the "to be" verb is used for temporary situations (like someone's mood, health, etc) and the other is used for permanent situations (buildings, gender, etc). In this case it seems that sono is the permanent form and stanno is the temporary form.
So they don't expect to do well together very long? Usually I associate that phrase with a longstanding relationship. Non capisco!
It's confusing, I know. In this case a relationship may be long lasting, but how well they go together is temporary and may change depending on a lot of outside factors (age, mood, financial situation, attitude, religion, political affiliation, etc).
Beauty is a good example. I always tell my wife she is (essere) beautiful, referring to her natural beauty and who she is as a person. Then when she dresses up I tell her she is (stare) beautiful, which is referring to how she looks.
No, actually the rules about “ser” and “estar” are more complicated than that. When you’re talking about people, yes, use “ser” for permanent qualities and “estar” for fleeting emotions. But estar is also used for locations, for example buildings (“desculpe, dónde está la farmacia?”) whereas the location of events uses ser, and events certainly aren’t permanent. “Stare” in Italian is always used to conjugate the present progressive, and also in some idiomatic expressions.
"They feel well together" was my answer and it was called as incorrect. Yet "Loro stanno" in the suggested answers included "They feel". Am I missing something or is this simply a mistake?
You can't substitute alternate words into a fixed phrase. Just like in English you would not say "They travel well together." It means something completely different from "They go well together."
I think this is the expression they are good together. They work well, make a good team, are a good fit. To me this is easier to come to than they work well together because stanno means they are, and in English (at least in my corner of the world) good and well are close enough that translating bene as good in this instance is, well, fine. O...insomma, bene.
You got the gist of it. We might also mention that in the USA many people use “good” as an adverb... I remember used car ads that made me cringe: “runs good.” =D
Not everything translates word-for-word. Different languages, different ways of saying things.
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Translating literally for this sentence will only give you half the story! In the English sentence, it's not usually there case that "They" are actually going somewhere.
could vanno in this case mean "are suitable", "suit each other", whereas stanno means "they belong with each other"?
