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- Topic: Italian >
- "Our cats are not white."
"Our cats are not white."
Translation:Le nostre gatte non sono bianche.
44 Comments
I never saw 'le gatte'. I do know that 'i gatti' is the plural form of 'il gatto'. Is 'le gatte' the plural form of 'la gatta', a feminine cat?
So just to be super clear about this, (I have a male and a female cat) would I say
when I see my male cat, il mio gatto,
and when I see my female cat, la mia gatta?
Also, following convention, if I have a bunch of cats female and male, must I say, i miei gatti?
No, there are some that have only one gender:
- il serpente = the snake
- la tigre = the tiger
There were two correct answers to this one. The above answer and "I nostri gatti non sono bianchi". We had to be careful to match the gatte or gatti with the corresponding bianche or bianchi. I get caught by this and am learning to be more aware of it.
I nostri gatti non sono bianchi, was my first answer, and marked wrong.
Surely there is nothing in this phrase to indicate the sex of the cats,so why am I incorrect in I nostri gatti?
I selected both "le gatte…" and "i gatti…" It was marked wrong, and "i gatti" was said to be the only correct answer. Now, at the top of this comments page, it shows "le gatte" as correct. I still think either is ok.
If cat is gatto why isn't plural gatti, in this case.. I said "I nostri gatti sono bianchi?" It seems the "correct" response interprets "cat" or "gatte"as feminine.
"I nostri gatti sono bianchi" means "our cats ARE white" you're asked to translate "our cats are NOT white" so the answer would be "I nostri gatti NON sono bianchi"
also Le nostre gatte non sono bianche is correct ( and the given answer here ) because cats can also be female.
Ok, my mistake. Le gatte had another error which I missed. So it appears both forms are correct.
Well, I haven't come across anything saying both genders are correct in Italian.
This is something! How can " I nostri gatti non sono bianchi" be considered wrong? And the gender of the cats was not specified in the above question? I thought you could choose to write " the cats[ gatti/gatte]" in what ever form you chosed but you have to conjugate everything in that same gender? If that is the case why was my above answer consider as WRONG? Can someone clerify this for me?
So why then did I get I gatti wrong, if I don't know the gender of the cats, and it is still correct otherwise?
If you meant that literally then the answer is because:
our cats = i nostri gatti (or le nostre gatte if you were specifically talking about all female cats)
(our cats) are they not male and female?????? I'm confused with duo lingo
If it's more than one cat, how can gatte be correct? And I thought the color had to match singular or plural, as well as gender.
"Le gatte" means The cats when all of the cats are female. i gatti is used for multiple male cats or for a mix of both male and female cats. Yes, the color does usually match singular/plural as well as the gender. Le gatte sono bianche is correct (so long as all the cats are female)
I mean le gatte sono bianche is an example of a grammatically correct sentence (not that it's the correct answer to this question)
I typed ( as I didn't know if the cats were male or female ) i nosti gatti non sono bianchi
This was accepted but I was told I had a typo.
The given answer was in the above female form but I can't spot my typo in the male form. Is there a typo or is DL just being pedantic because I wasn't psychic enough to realise it wanted girl cats in stead of boy cats? :D
755
You forgot the 'r' in "nostri". That's the only typo I can see. Also, I agree that it should, of course, accept the masculine form of the sentence, as well. Hope this has been fixed by now. :)
- 240
I entered I nostri gatti non soon bianci, instead of letting nostre gatte non sono bianche! My answer should have been accepted
How are you supposed to know from the sentence if we are talking about male or female cats?
i nostri gatti non sono bianchi - the adjective changes form to the plural as well.
- 755
Just one small error, Crash: "I nostri gatti" is masculine plural, but "bianche" is feminine plural. :)
- 755
The word "sono" is used with both io and loro. "Io sono" (English - I am) , "loro sono" (they are). The word "sei" is the conjugation used with tu, 2nd person singular informal in Italian. "Tu sei" (English - you are). To further complicate matters, the pronoun is usually left out in Italian unless you are emphasizing the person doing the action. So, I am = sono and also they are = sono, you are = sei. Sorry this is so long! :)
I like the part of your explanation when you said, to further complicate matters.. ^_^ but, nonetheless, thank you for helping me understand.
Why le gatte when the singular is il gatto and in the question the gender of the cat is not specified. This is extremely confusing.
- 240
I typed I bistro get to sink bianchi, and it was marked incorrect! There are two ways of saying the plural of cats- I get to or or gatte! My answer should have been accepted!
If you know they are all female cats then you can say "le nostre gatte non sono bianche" if they are all male or there are mixed gender or it's not known which gender then default to the male form "i nostri gatti non sono bianchi
Whether duo will accept the female form is a different question. This course is not maintained by anyone and answers that should be accepted ( or even corrected ) have gone unmodified for years.
- 211
I used the male form and Duolingo said its wrong... How was I to know, that the cats are female?
- 110
My head is going to explode because almost every word is changing based on masculine and feminine subjects...
