"Is he waiting for someone?"

Translation: Aspetta qualcuno?

[gerry11111]

why can't the pronoun be feminine here?

[missmobtown]

I marked the feminine, too. I think it's because if one is speaking in general, the pronoun defaults to the masculine.

[tonkoch]

But that's not obvious from the English.

[jfrodrigo]

non capito perché non e corretto aspetta qualquna

[Mape363194]

You have a typo, correct is qualcuno or qualcuna

[AlexBuxton]

The english would imply the phrase Sta aspettando qualcuno. Aspetta qualcuna in english would be he waits for someone

[Amerath]

Would "aspetta per qualcuno?" not be acceptable?

[f.formica]

In Italian "per" isn't needed to complete the meaning of "aspettare", so it would introduce a different object, i.e. it'd sound like he's waiting, and he's doing it for (or in place of) someone.

[Anne609994]

Many thanks have an ingot

[germz20]

I'm a native Spanish speaker & in this sentence "por" (Spanish for "per) would be needed otherwise it changes the meaning to "someone is waiting" (está esperando alguien). How do you know in Italian that the one waiting isn't "qualcuno"?

[ChrisUndrh]

This is a good point. How can we tell, especially as the word order will not tell us (as in English) which word is the subject.

[StuartWill1]

If you haven't seen formica's response yet, would you mind taking a look above and possibly commenting on it? As a native english speaker i'd be very interested in hearing the italian vs. spanish take on this.

[Chrisschito]

Prompts incorrect

[FRANDGuy]

Trap sentence, idiom. Where is the gerondif in the italian sentence.

[StuartWill1]

I get what you're referring to, but in this case you can tell it's not a -ando ending. The verb form in english transforms into "he's waiting [for]..." from "he waits [for]...", which of course takes the form " aspetta..."

Unfortunately my understanding ends there; but there are others here who can explain it better.

[carlosgonzalez00]

Why doesn't it accept "Sta aspettando qualcuno?"

[Laloka458850]

aspetta qualcuno o aspetto qualcuno???

[tonkoch]

Aspetto qualcuno would mean I am waiting for someone