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- "Lui è figlio dei miei vicini…
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It could be "il figlio", but it is more colloquial to drop the pronoun "il" in this context.
Why the definite article "the son" and not "a son" when neither is specified?
From what I can gather, anytime you have a singular family member it is dropped.
yeah I'm wondering the same.. Or if it's dropped every time, then why does the answer has to have it? Makes no sense
It depends on how close the family member is. You still use "il" with cousins and, I believe, uncles/nephews/grandparents/grandchildren.
359
I thought figlio could also mean child? I put "he is my neighbours' child" which was marked wrong. Should DL have accepted this?
I don't believe so. My understanding is that figlio is son, figlia is daughter, figlie is daughters, and figli is sons or children. Only the plural is cause for confusion. The single of child is Bambino i believe
An apostrophe would be wrong here. The word "of" ("of my neighbors") already makes this possessive. Correct answers are "He is the son of my neighbors" (no apostrophe) or "He is my neighbors' son" (with apostrophe).
Yes I agree wit you. Although I am surprised by the form of Duo's answer. In England at least, we would say ...my neirgbour's son. not the son of my neighbours. It does not sound right.
A slight correction. The placement of the apostrophe matters. My neighbor's son is the son of my neighbor (singular). My neighbors' son is the son of my neighborS. But you're right. The son of my neighbors is grammatically correct but doesn't sound right on either side of the Atlantic.
I agree with you. They didn't mark it wrong when I put one in, but corrected it (incorrectly)
"He's my neighbours' son" was marked as having a typo on 20/12/2017. Duo reckons I should have written "he's my neighbours son"...
... it seems our owl friend needs to go back to school and learn when apostrophes are required in English to show possession.
seriously, how are you supposed to know that the neighbors had only one son? so that's why the article was dropped. "a son" should be also accepted as it is what it's actually written.
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really speaking he is not the direct son of the speaker. It is a neighbour speaking so shouldn't it have an article.
So, Vicina is a woman neighbor. Vicino is a man neighbor and Vicini is the family near by. Now then, would one speak of the women neighbors as vicine?
The English wording "He is son to my neighbours" is not very idiomatic, but is probably the closest in terms of literal translation.
He is son of my neighbors non può essere considerato errore. Non c'è l'articolo nemmeno in italiano!
In English, you must use an article before "son" (i.e., "he is the son of, or he is a son of my neighbors). In this case the translation requires "the."
Please fix.
Please pay attention to articles. This is a Latin language, not Germanic
In this translation there's no room for the article.
The article would be needed if it was mentioned in the original.
Does "dei miei" mean that it is plural neighbors. Would a singular neighbor be "il mio vicino"
Shouldn't "lui è figlio dei miei vicina" also be right if the neighbour was a single parent? My version of the question had pull down options for vicini, vicina, vicino. or does vicini also translate to a possessive s as well as a plural s. I'm confused.
dei = 'de i' miei vicini is masculine plural - all those i's. Della mia vicina. Ha a bunch of 'a' because vicina is femine. in otherwords: genitive (English 's) is expressed with de + article de il = del vicino, della vicina, de i = dei vicini, delle vicine (feminine plural, if there are 2 female parents/adults as neighbors)
He is my neighbor's son, should also be correct, especially if the neighbor was a single parent.
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no, that is not a possible translation because if the neighbour were singular (and single!) the Italian sentence would be "lui è figlio del mio vicino OR perhaps della mia vicina?
- 645
This is an English oddity. "He is my neighbors' son" with the apostrophe after the "s" is the grammatically correct way to indicate the possessive of a plural in this case. This is accepted. (if the neighbor was a single parent it would be "vicina" or "vicino" not vicini.) But if you simply spoke English and never wrote it, there would be no audible difference; perhaps this explains some of the confusion by those wanting to use "neighbor's"
Except that Linda was thinking "single parent" and the Italian is clearly plural. But when I wrote "my neighbors' son" Duo corrected it without the apostrophe, which I reported, with explanation.
With "Lui è figlio dei miei __ ." is there any way of telling if it is neighbours rather than the singular neighbour? I assumed it was singular and got it wrong but I may have just used the wrong end as I put vicine.
